This email is packed with a lot of info! I know I said my emails would be shorter, but here we are. I'm introducing a few exciting new services in November, with more to come in the next several months. I also have a small price change for appointments with bodywork starting in November. I've also included information about Fall and foods for dampness at the end of the email!

Highlights to look for:

• Upcoming new services
• Introducing memberships!
• Small pricing update
• Fall information, including foods for dampness

If you haven't already, make sure you get out and vote on Tuesday, November 5th! Polls in Iowa are open from 7 am - 8 pm. You need an ID to vote, so don't forget yours. Click here for more info on what IDs are acceptable. You can find your polling location here. If you're not registered yet, don't worry - you can also register to vote at the polls! Click here for info on what you need to bring with you to register. More questions? Check out my Voting info page, or email me back - I am happy to help!

Take care,

Kate Thomas, LAc

P.S. If you've been to the clinic recently, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few minutes to leave a Google review! Google reviews make a huge difference for small businesses - it helps businesses show up when someone searches. If you've already left a review, thank you so much!

New Services!

I have a few new services that I will be offering starting in November and December! I'm pretty excited about these new offerings - they are a mix of things people have been asking for and things that will (hopefully) make your life a bit easier. I've included the highlights below, but I've gone into more depth in my most recent blog post. Click here to read it!​

Memberships

Starting November 1st, I am offering memberships! All memberships include 2 discounted monthly appointments, the ability to purchase additional appointments with the same discount, and discounts on retail and FullScript. You can learn more about them on the Membership page.

There's no minimum commitment - my goal is to make things a bit more affordable for people coming in regularly for care! This would be a good deal for you if you currently have 2+ appointments per month.

Acupuncture + Facial Rejuvenation Appointments

This new 90-minute appointment includes a luxurious facial gua sha and cupping treatment while you receive acupuncture for the rest of your body. It is open to everyone - not just current patients! It's a perfect fit for you if you're:

• looking to relax and receive a little extra care,
• have been curious about acupuncture but don't have anything in particular you need to work on right now,
• experience pain or tension in your jaw, face, and/or neck,
• are looking to improve your skin tone and fine lines and help your skin look brighter and healthier.

All treatments feature TOMA Essential Skin Therapy products. These appointments will be available in late November!

Acupuncture + Holistic Microneedling Appointments

I’ll talk a lot more about these when they're available, but each appointment includes full body acupuncture and a face and neck microneedling and nanoneedling treatment. Microneedling and nanoneedling are a way to quickly increase Qi and Blood in the face, which can help reduce scarring and improve your skin’s tone and condition. Microneedling and nanoneedling are also effective for scarring elsewhere on the body! These treatments also use TOMA Essential Skin Therapy, which I am thrilled to bring into the clinic. I’ll share more about these appointments soon!

Clinic Updates

Fall, Metal, & Dampness

In a previous newsletter, I talked about dryness and the Metal element. In this newsletter, I will talk about the opposite problem: dampness. While dampness is often associated with the Spleen, fluid accumulation can also be related to the Metal element*. And we can see this often: people tend to have extra fluid in their bodies this time of year! This often shows up as extra mucus, but can also feel like heavy limbs, a heavy sense of fatigue, and brain fog, along with other accumulations of fluids (vaginal discharge, edema, etc.).

An accumulation of fluids is a tangible example of the idea of "holding on too much" to things. If we struggle to let go of what is no longer serving us, we can feel weighted down, heavy, and like we are dragging ourselves - and our extra mental weight - around with us. In the same way, dampness in the body is seen as our body not letting go of the fluids it needs to, leading to it building up in the body. If we have dampness in our bodies for too long, it can transition to damp with heat, which adds a whole extra layer to the challenge!

Reducing dampness can be tricky because our lifestyles often involve many things that contribute to its building up: food on the go, cold and iced drinks, irregular meals, lack of sleep, etc. all contribute to dampness. Generally, it's not a matter of eliminating dampness but managing it to the point that it's not impacting our health too much.

Food Therapy for Dampness

To support our bodies and help remove dampness, we want to support the Spleen and eat foods that nourish our digestive organs, and we want to drain some of the dampness out of our body. (Remember, the Spleen is one of the key digestive organs in Chinese medicine!) In addition to the typical Spleen-friendly foods, the following tips are the most helpful to reduce dampness in the body.

The following foods often increase dampness in the body:

• Greasy/oily foods
• Raw foods
• Frozen foods/drinks (or drinks with lots of ice)
• Beer
• Tofu (it is cold and damp)
• Dairy (including cheese, butter, ice cream, etc.) - vegan versions can also increase damp
• Fatty meats

You don’t need to eliminate these foods completely! Reduce the quantity you currently eat, or eat less when you notice your symptoms are more severe.

A few foods and herbs that help "drain damp" from the body include:

• "Bland-sweet" foods: these foods help with Spleen health, and are most common in grains and beans. Millet and coix seed (Job’s Tears) are particularly great at "draining dampness" from the body. I have a few recipes for millet porridge linked on my Recipes page. Job's Tears is a great gluten-free replacement^ for barley in soups and is traditionally made as tea. If you need help finding either ingredient, email me! Click here for cooking info for coix seed!​
• This doesn’t mean the meal needs to taste bland! Add spices & seasonings, cook with broth, use sauces and other condiments, etc., to make the meals that include these ingredients more flavorful.
• Include some pungent flavors, especially pungent/aromatic (basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, cloves, etc.) if you tend to run cooler, or pungent/cooling (peppermint, spearmint, marjoram, lavender, lemon balm) if you tend to run warmer.
• Certain herbs are also great at reducing dampness and are easy to include in soups or drink as tea, such as chen pi (aged tangerine peel) and fu ling (poria mushroom). Adzuki beans are also commonly included in teas, but can be eaten on their own too!

Two of the most important food therapy practices to stick to when working with the Spleen are:

1. Eat meals at regular times. Remember, “the Spleen loves routine” - eating meals at regular intervals is very helpful for Spleen health! If it helps, schedule your meal times in your calendar.
2. Eat cooked, warm foods. Avoid cold, raw, or iced foods, including salads, smoothies, etc. This is especially important now that we're (finally!) experiencing cooler temperatures. We want to support our digestive fire, and eating cooked foods helps make it easy on our body's digestion.

Keep in mind that we don't want to become too dry! If you are often thirsty or have a dry cough and/or dry skin/hair/eyes etc. you may not have much dampness in your body. While supporting your Spleen is still great advice, avoid the damp-reducing foods - no need to dry your body out further! 😊

It's hard to convey all the nuances of food therapy in an email newsletter, but I hope this information is helpful! If you're not sure where to start with food therapy, I talk about this one-on-one with patients and provide customized food therapy advice that is specific to their Chinese medicine patterns - click here to learn more about my different appointment types!​

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* This happens due to the Lung/Spleen pairing, or taiyin meridian pair - but I didn't want to get too in the weeds for an email newsletter 😂
^ Job's Tears has a lot of names: Coix Seed, Yi Yi Ren, Coix Lacryma, Chinese pearl barley, etc. This grain is gluten free, and is not a true barley. (More info if you're curious.)

That's it! Take good care of yourself. As always, feel free to email me back with any questions.

Kate