Balance Medicine .com - Peter Martin LAc. LMT.



	Welcome to Balance Medicine I'm Peter Martin, Licensed Acupuncturist, Licensed Massage Therapist (#883) and practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine. My NW Portland, Oregon office is located at 1920 NW Johnson, Suite 107. Parking is available in the lot on the NE corner of 19th and Johnson. Services are available by appointment @ 503.294.0162 You may also email me. more » Acupuncture Today in most western cultures it is considered a "new, alternative" medicine. In reality Acupuncture (and its related Moxibustion) are practiced medical treatments that are over 5,000 years old. Very basically, Acupuncture is the insertion of very fine needles, (sometimes in conjunction with electrical stimulus), on the body's surface, in order to influence physiological functioning of the body. more » Massage Therapy Massage is a successful tool for healing and has been practiced throughout the world for thousands of years. In adults as in babies, massage has many benefits from a preventive health perspective as well as stimulating the body's own natural healing mechanisms to aide in the recovery from trauma or other physical or emotional stresses. more » Update Balance Medicine has recently changed its web hosting provider to a local Portland Oregon web hosting company . We are currently interested in link exchanges with other acupuncture practitioners. We are open to exchanges with other healing practitioners that would complement acupuncture. If you are interested email your request here.. Please include balance medicine in the subject line. more » What is Acupuncture? Acupuncture is a method of encouraging the body to promote healing and to improve functioning by inserting needles or applying heat or electrical stimulation at precise acupuncture points. The classical Chinese explanation of acupuncture's effectiveness is that channels of energy run in regular patterns through the body and over its surface. These channels, sometimes referred to as meridians, are like rivers flowing through the body to cleanse and nourish the tissues and organs. An obstruction in the movement of these energy rivers is like a dam that backs up the flow in one part of the body and restricts it in others. Any blockage or deficiency of energy and blood will eventually lead to disease and be evidenced by pain or dysfunction. more » Acupuncture Coding for Acupuncturists And office staff By Peter Martin LMT. LAc. - Portland Acupuncture Practitioner The provision of acupuncture and oriental medicine within the third-party payer system of American healthcare necessitates the use of codes which designate what is being treated and what procedures are being utilized. This information is relevant for Acupuncture performed in the Oregon, Washington and most of the United States. Some state rules and regulations restrict licensed acupuncturists from diagnosis in medical terms. Still, the ICD-9 contains many codes that are sign and symptom oriented and well within those limits set for acupuncture. If you have a referral with a diagnosis and treatment plan from your primary care physician, so much the better. But you must provide an ICD code when billing and that diagnosis should be clear in you chart notes as well. The codes that designate therapeutic procedures including acupuncture are listed in Current Procedural Terminology (CPT), updated and published yearly by the American Medical Association. more » Death Risk Tutorial (Not Acupuncture Related) By Peter Martin LMT. LAc. - Portland Acupuncture Practitioner The following tutorial is designed to reduce your risk of death. Granted, overall your risk of death is 100% and nothing you do will change that, but the information linked to here will help you to understand and avoid (to the extent possible) the most common causes of death in the USA. Listed are text and visual media that cover the top ten plus a couple of others that will be in the top ten at some time in YOUR lifespan. Yes, we are talking about you, though you may have some exotic demise planned, the odds say one of the following will play an intimate part in your departure. more » World Health (WHO) Acupuncture Trials Article - Over its 2500 years of development, a wealth of experience has accumulated in the practice of acupuncture, attesting to the wide range of diseases and conditions that can be effectively treated with this approach. Unlike many other traditional methods of treatment, which tend to be specific to their national or cultural context, acupuncture has been used throughout the world, particularly since the 1970s. In recognition of the increasing worldwide interest in the subject, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a symposium on acupuncture in June 1979 in Beijing, China. more » HOME \| PETER MARTIN \| ACUPUNCTURE \| MASSAGE THERAPY \| RESOURCES \| DIRECTIONS Images and content copyright © 2003-2008 Peter Martin Balance Medicine. All Rights Reserved Site Hosted by ant0n.org

One of my acupuncture treatment rooms in NW Portland. Like most acupuncture practitioners I treat many patients with pain; mostly low back, neck, shoulder and knee pain though all musculoskeletal and neurogenic pain is treatable with acupuncture.

A very old Cypress tree in the Emperor's Garden in the Forbidden City in Beijing. China

This is another corner of the Forbidden City. Only the Emperor was allowed to have yellow tiles on his roof.

This is another view of the NW Portland office. In addition to pain treatments the second most common category of illnesses treated by acupuncture would be respiratory problems such as sinusitis, asthma and allergies.

A little Panda massage at the Panda Breeding Center in a NW suburb of Chengdu, Sichuan, China in November of 2007.

This was my tenth trip to China in connection with acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine though the first trip to include this massage technique.

The Center has been very successful in increasing the number of Panda births in China. I don't know if they use acupuncture and herbal medicine to increase fertility and IVF success rates as is done with people.