Doctor's Reputation Grows as Patients Seek Acupuncture's Healing
Power, Pain Relief

http://www.greenwichcitizen.com/Stories/0,1413,237~24704~2654025,00.h
tml

By Patricia McCormack HYPERLINK mailto:pmccormack@...
pmccormack@...

A golfer hoping to head off pain on the greens motored all the way
from Boston a week after New Year's Day to see Dr. Halina Snowball
at Orthopaedic & Neurosurgery Specialists (ONS) in Greenwich Office
Park on Valley Drive. She may be small in stature, but her
reputation keeps getting bigger and better following her treatment
last June of professional golfer Fred Couples from Santa Barbara
when acute pain threatened to make him quit in the middle of the
Buick Golf Classic Tournament in Westchester County.
The unnamed golfer from Beantown had read about how Snowball treated
Couples with acupuncture

considered Chinese voodoo until recent times

and thought a session with Snowball might help him with his own pain
and game.

Snowball is a physiatrist, a medical doctor practicing non-surgical
treatment and management of musculo skeletal conditions, using
primarily physical means. The nation's 6,000 physiatrists, she
explained, treat a wide range of problems




OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SECTION
1/15/2005
- Educator Pens Guide to New, Improved SAT
- Lessons in Charity




sore joints, painful necks and backs, spinal cord injuries

through a variety of conservative methods that include medical
acupuncture, trigger-point injections for muscle or soft tissue
injuries, cortisone injections for spine and joint treatment,
physical therapy and medications. She said the field is growing in
popularity as people seek ways of dealing with the aches and pains
associated with active, athletic and stressful lifestyles through a
variety of conservative methods. In cases such as the one presented
by Couples, Snowball first locates acupuncture points along the
spine, north to south where pain originates.

Next, she inserts sterile stainless steel acupuncture needles on the
left side of that spot. Then she inserts three of the hair-thin
needles

hard to see without magnification

along the right side of the spot. The step after that she attaches
what look like clamps

tiny versions of the business end of jumpers used to start a
battery. The little clamps are attached to a power source that, when
Snowball activates it, delivers a microvolt jolt of electricity.
Snowball said in an interview Monday that the juice in such
treatments stays on and is powered up until the patient feels it.
What happens, in simplest terms, according to the modus operandi of
modern medical acupuncture: The stimulation at precise acupuncture
points stimulates the nervous system to release neuralhormonal
chemicals in the muscles, spinal cord and brain.

The American Academy of Medical Acupuncture explains further: "These
chemicals will either change the experience of pain, or they will
trigger the release of other chemicals and hormones which influence
the body's own internal regulation system. The improved energy and
biochemical balance produced by acupuncture results in stimulating
the body's natural healing activities and in promoting physical and
emotional well-being." Couples, according to accounts, experienced
instantaneous pain relief after the treatment by Snowball. Returning
to the tournament, he rebounded to a one-shot lead going into the
third round. "Unbelievable," he told a reporter for The New York
Times.

RX for Core Strengthening "For most patients dealing with pain
issues, the best course is usually a combination of treatments,"
Snowball said. "For back pain, a blend of acupuncture, injections,
medications and physical therapy can effectively treat the pain,
help relax the muscles and begin to strengthen and support the
spine. "Many painful conditions, particularly in the back, are due
to a lack of sufficient core strength. Core strength is the ability
of the muscles of the abdomen and back to support the spine and keep
the body flexible, stable and strong."

After the acute phase of treatment for musculo skeletal pain,
Snowball said she often advises a routine of yoga, aquatic exercise
or even Pilates to build core strength and prevent re-injury. "We
are not body builders," she said, noting that the exercise
prescription following treatment is on the minimum side

but it must be practiced on a regular basis. "In the case of
strengthening exercises, most people, and golfers in particular,
make the mistake of thinking is 'a little bit is good, much more
will be better," she said. "Often times golfers who go the 'much
more' route will find the 'much more' does not improve their game
and may set them back."

Due to the spotlight put on her via the treatment for Couples,
Snowball has been getting involved in planning ways to help area
golfers through, of all things, "yoga for golfers." A while back she
even attended a PGA pow-wow in Westchester County and talked about
the possibility. "There were pros and representatives from clubs in
Long Island, Westchester and Fairfield counties. Yoga, with its
stretching exercises, is good for building core strength and keeping
the musculo skeletal system flexible," she said. "That's why I
recommend it for golfers." To help her current patients get past
pain and into core-strengthening exercises, the specialist, a native
of Perth, Australia, runs "RX: YOGA" at the Greenwich YMCA twice a
week.

Healing Power of Acupuncture

Tom Henderson, head pro at the Round Hill Club in Greenwich for the
past 18 years, said when his right shoulder began to hurt due to
some early tendonitis, "it was a serious problem for me." A shoulder
specialist he consulted at ONS referred him to Snowball. "She
treated me with a comprehensive acupuncture approach," he
reports. "She uses needles not only in my shoulder, but also in my
back, neck and feet. I find it so relaxing, I usually fall asleep."
After receiving acupuncture treatments once a week for three weeks
and doing some physical therapy, Henderson reported his shoulder was
about "98 percent healed."

Snowball, now a grandmother of two, graduated from the University of
Florida Medical School, Gainesville, in 1985. She did her residency
at Stanford Medical Center in California. She is board certified by
the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. She is a
member of the American Association of Medical Acupuncture and the
American Academy of Physical Medicine and Acupuncture. In addition
to her link to Couples' successful emergency acupuncture treatment,
she is known for her work on the role of acupuncture and integrative
medicine such as acupuncture in pain management and rehabilitation.

She studied "modern acupuncture" in a University of California at
Los Angeles medical school course designed by Dr. Joe Helms.
Acupuncturists trained there, according to Snowball, include some
who treat clients at the White House and the Pentagon. Modern
acupuncture, the type using electrically stimulated needles, differs
from ancient, which uses swirling needles to achieve
stimulation. "This was called conification," Snowball said. "The
needles, once inserted, were twirled by hand to stimulate the
acupuncture pathways."

The latest, according to Snowball, is acupuncture to go. In this
approach, small needles are inserted into acupuncture points on the
ear lobe. In a variation of this, recently, a tiny gold sterile
bead, made in France, is placed in a strategic spot on the lobe. The
bead is so small it is hard to see with the naked eye. Bringing
acupuncture in from the cold eye of medical skepticism started in
the 1970s when an American journalist, in China, had his appendix
taken out without anesthesia. Acupuncture took the place of
anesthesia, according to accounts.

In recent decades, the therapy was given official respectability
when the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., launched
the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine,
which included acupuncture. A report on a clinical trial to test
acupuncture for its potentiality of reducing pain and functional
impairment of osteoarthritis of the knee led Dr. Stephen; E. Straus,
head of the center, to report in a recent statement: "...results
indicate that acupuncture can serve as an effective addition to a
standard regimen of care and improve quality of life for knee
osteoarthritis sufferers."

Meanwhile, the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture reports: The
World Health Organization recognizes the use of acupuncture in the
treatment of a wide range of medical problems, including:

Digestive disorders: gastritis and hype-acidity, spastic colon,
constipation, diarrhea.

Respiratory disorders: sinusitis, sore throat, bronchitis, asthma,
recurrent chest infections.

Neurological and muscular disorders: headaches, facial tics, neck
pain, rib neuritis, frozen shoulder, tennis elbow, various forms of
tendonitis, low back pain, sciatica, osteoarthritis;

Urinary, menstrual and reproductive problems.

"Acupuncture is particularly useful in resolving physical problems
related to tension and stress and emotional conditions," the Academy
adds.