According to WebMD, "nearly 8 out of 10 people will have back pain at some point in their life." That's a staggering number of people! With the current opioid crisis, a lot of patients are seeking alternative ways to deal with their pain. Low back pain is the most common condition that people seek treatment for in our offices. Luckily for most folks, acupuncture is a very effective treatment for both chronic and acute low back pain. If you've never tried it, you may have que

We all know when you have any aches, pains or injuries, you’re supposed to ice the area, right? Wrong! For some reason, we’ve all grown up here in the US being told we should apply ice to any and all injuries. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, this does not seem to be good advice. But icing helps with inflammation, doesn’t it? The original theory behind icing was that it must help healing since it reduces inflammation. Let’s look at this concept a bit closer. Inflammatio

If you are in the Las Vegas area then you know that we've had a rough allergy season this year! It may seem odd to still be talking allergies in mid-June, but it's been so prevalent in patients that we have been seeing lately that it can't be ignored! Acupuncture has been shown to be effective for treating allergies (one such example study is here: http://www.healthcmi.com/Acupuncture-Continuing-Education-News/1435-acupuncture-relieves-sinus-allergies). Typical sessions invo

We got great weather this past Saturday out at the American Patriot Festival at the Craig Ranch Regional Park. It was a fantastic event! We were situated directly across from the food trucks (perfect location if you ask me! It smelled great all day! lol) We met tons of awesome folks - lots of active duty military and veterans. It was great to educate people about how awesome acupuncture is for pain relief and answer all sorts of questions. If you signed up for our email list

Many non-acupuncturists out there will tell you that dry needling and acupuncture are separate and distinct procedures that seem similar but

It's spring time again here in the desert! And by "spring time" I mean that blink-and-you-almost-missed-it time here in Vegas where the evenings are cool and the daytime highs are in the upper 70s and low 80s. Really, don't blink, it's going to be surface-of-the-sun hot in like...probably by the time I'm done writing this blog post. Haha. Seriously though, the spring season is associated in Chinese medicine with the Wood element, the Liver and Gallbladder, growth and outward

It's been all over the news recently - you've probably heard it - the United States is facing an epidemic of overdoses and addiction from opioid use. According the CDC, "As many as 1 in 4 people who receive prescription opioids long term for noncancer pain in primary care settings struggles with addiction." Does that figure floor you?! If it doesn't, it should. I see patients everyday that are taking prescription opioids for varying reasons - chronic low back pain, acute trau

Cupping got a lot of attention during the summer Olympics when swimmer Michael Phelps was spotted with some odd looking round bruises on his shoulders and upper back. Needless to say, we were fielding questions left and right about what cupping is, what we use it for, whether it's painful, and if it actually works. What is cupping? Cupping is what we call a decompression myofascial release technique. What all those fancy words really mean is that it creates space in the tissu

Dr. Joel Rios joined our Integrative Acupuncture family last March just before I went out on maternity leave. In fact, he really came through for us in a pinch when we desperately needed a good doctor to fill in for me during my absence. He ended up staying with us even after I returned, which has been great. Sadly for us, he is now going out on his own and opening a private practice on the other side of town. We had to have a goodbye dinner to mark the occasion, so we chose

Dr. Mike and I were out today at the 2nd Annual Skye Canyon Fit Fest. The weather didn't exactly cooperate (the mix of wind, cold and rain wasn't ideal for an outdoor event!), but it was still a great event overall and we met some fantastic folks. We were happy to answer many questions about acupuncture - especially how well it works for pain relief! Thanks to everyone that stopped by! #acupuncture #FitFest #painrelief #DrRachelKohl #DrMikeFerris #IntegrativeAcupuncture