Linda Yamamoto is an 84-year-old Japanese-American woman who has received acupuncture from the Boston Acupuncture Clinic for the past 9 years. She stayed home until her youngest child went to high school. She then started working for the government as an accountant. She has been very social, active and happy. She donated money to a foundation to help Asian college students in need. She doesn’t travel much, which gives her time to participate in many types of social activities in the Boston area. Her husband drives her. She gets upset when her husband forgets to pick her up and rarely complains about her.
Good genes do not guarantee good health
Linda has inherited good genes from her mother, who lived to age 98 without any health insurance. But these good genes don’t protect Linda from getting sick. She developed a hypothyroid condition when she turned 40 after giving birth to her third child. She started taking Synthroid for her thyroid condition. After a few years on thyroid medication, she developed atrial fibrillation (AF). She then took a β-blocker and two other medications for her heart condition. Her heartbeat slowed down with the medication, but never returned to normal.
HRT (hormone replacement therapy) treatment brought dreams to many postmenopausal women. They thought that they could regain their youth by taking this magic pill. Linda tried it at the age of 68 only to see her period return a year later. She thought that was unnatural and she stopped the hormone pill right away. Her good genes could not protect her in modern society. Linda developed breast cancer at the age of 70 after taking hormonal supplements for a year. She underwent surgery and radiation therapy, but she did not take tamoxifen to block her estrogen receptors, so she retained her muscle strength.
At the age of 80, she stopped working for the government because she realized the stress was too much for her. She spent more time at social events. She always sleeps eight hours no matter what time she goes to bed. When she went to bed after midnight, her heartbeat became irregular and her digestion became poor. For some time, she attended many late-night social events and ate dinner after 7 p.m. During that time, her heartbeat was irregular even though she was taking three medications for her condition. . I recommended that she stop drinking coffee, eat dinner before 7 pm and go to bed before midnight.
Back on track with a healthy and disciplined routine
Linda gradually changed her clothes. The condition of the heart and digestion have been improving during the last few years. She went to her cardiologist for her routine check-ups and eventually stopped taking all of her heart medications at the age of 87. Linda keeps coming to see me for acupuncture facial rejuvenation. Her heartbeat is around 55-65 without any heart medication. Also, since she stopped her medication, the coldness in her hands and feet has decreased, and they don’t turn extremely pale during the winter.
With his heart condition improving, he began to train personally at a gym to tone his muscles. When she started lifting weights three times a week, she started having pain in her knee and hip. But because he eats healthy, he didn’t have any systemic inflammation and his muscle aches were relieved with just one or two acupuncture treatments. With acupuncture and exercises, his joint pain and Raynaud’s syndrome no longer bother him. His face looks like that of a 50-year-old woman; she still has a sharp memory and never forgets to pay her bills on time. She still cooks, cleans and lives in her own house.
In 2016, Linda fell in the bathtub and fractured her thoracic vertebrae and shrunk several inches. She made me very sad that she was never able to continue her facial rejuvenation with acupuncture. Because Linda has been exercising all her life, she was able to recover from the bad fall in 2 months. She came back for her routine acupuncture 3 months after her fall and she told me that she has developed more wrinkles on one side of her face. When we met in the waiting room, she told me that she would like her to use acupuncture to reduce those wrinkles. Some of my patients, who were in the waiting room, were so impressed with her facial skin and her muscle tone. They thought that she looked 60 years old when the reality was that she was 93 years old.