
Who am I?
I am Carolyn, a GP and acupuncturist and have recently moved to the Eastbourne area with my husband’s job. I feel so lucky to be in Eastbourne, by the sea and the Downs, it is a perfect place to bring up our young children. I also feel lucky to be joining the team at Lushington Chiropractic to practice acupuncture and whose values are entirely in line with my own – community, health and growth. We are all helped to grow throughout our lives if we are surrounded by people who support and value us and at Lushington I can see a team that thrives because of the connections the team have made between themselves.

I have a background in arts and then went on to study medicine after doing an anthropology degree. I did medicine as a second degree and trained in acupuncture at the same time having seen it performed in Thailand where I did my anthropology research into Thai traditional medicine. Once I had started needling I found it difficult to stop! I find it is useful for such a wide variety of conditions. There are the obvious ones like headaches, migraines, back pains, neck pains. However, it is useful for many more conditions such as hot flushes in the menopause, irritable bladders, IBS, low mood, insomnia, fatigue and stress. Part of the reason it helps with general wellbeing is due to all the lovely biochemicals it helps your body to release naturally such as endorphins, your body’s pain killer, and serotonin and oxytocin which lift your mood and make you feel more relaxed
I lecture and examine for the British Medical Acupuncture Society (BMAS). We train healthcare professionals such as nurses, doctors, osteopaths and chiropractors on our courses. They needle each other so get feel the positive effects of regular acupuncture treatments throughout their training. I enjoy the teaching side and sit on the council for the BMAS as the society’s Vice President. We have a lot of interest in our courses from around the world as Western medical acupuncture is not established as a speciality in a lot of countries.
What are the two types of acupuncture?
Western medical acupuncture developed from traditional acupuncture after President Nixon travelled to China in the 1970s and saw how beneficial it could be. Western medical acupuncturists make a conventional diagnosis before treating you based on neurophysiological principles. Chinese acupuncturists on the other hand base their diagnosis on the Chinese traditional medical system which is based on the concept of Qi, your vital energy, flowing around the body. It is steeped in tradition including Taoism which looks at the natural balance and order of life and tries to restore that.
I believe both systems are actually trying to do the same thing – to restore the body to its natural way. The body can be viewed as a perfectly functioning machine but it needs looking after rather like an expensive car, you would make sure it was oiled, cleaned and regularly serviced to ensure it ran smoothly. When we do the same for our bodies they can function perfectly and acupuncture helps them to do this by themselves.
Making acupuncture accessible for everybody
I use acupuncture in my daily work as a GP and have set up a teaching clinic as a pilot for the BMAS offering low cost affordable treatments to patients in the GP or community setting. I hope to introduce this in Eastbourne in the near future to help people to reduce their medications and get back to work more quickly. Patients love it and I find it very rewarding. My aim is to make acupuncture as affordable and accessible to the people of Eastbourne as possible. I’d love to set up group clinics run by the community for the community in a GP setting so people can be treated together as they are in China. I can imagine the community of Eastbourne getting behind this idea.
This week is Acupuncture Awareness Week so it is an ideal time for me to be starting up my new acupuncture clinic at Lushington Chiropractic. I have met all the team and can’t wait to start working with them.
All appointments with me and my colleague Rob Bowley, who is a traditional acupuncturist, will be half price for the month of March to celebrate Acupuncture Awareness Week. If you haven’t tried acupuncture before why not come along and try acupuncture with one of us.
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