Acupuncture – An Interview with Dr. Howard Chen, MD/Acupuncturist

Growing up in the western side of the world, alternative medicine is often viewed as ineffective hippy crap. We are almost conditioned to believe that drugs are the only way to treat an illness. “When I went to Burning Man for the first time, I suffered from horrible allergies,” says Dr. Howard Chen, a graduate of the University of Rochester medical school in New York. “I knew it was going to be bad, so I had every allergy medicine available to me, but they didn’t work”, he continues.

A friend then offered to do some acupuncture on Chen, and he accepted. The allergies were gone, and he was able to enjoy the desert. This is when he decided to become an acupuncturist. Dr. Chen explains acupuncture by comparing it to a punch card computer. “Remember those old computers, where you insert the punch card and the computer knows what to do? Well, in acupuncture, you place the needles in a specific part of your body, and it knows what to do.”

Both types of acupuncture can help accelerate this process. In western medicine, the needles placed in your body cause small injuries, which tell the body to pay attention to it and heal it. In eastern medicine, the needles are placed along energy flow meridians, helping conduct or unblock energy flow along those meridians and aid in the healing process.

Either way you look at it, it’s undeniable that acupuncture has positive effects on the body. Dr. Chen says acupuncture is so effective that he does it fifty percent of the time at his Renown office. So, next time when you feel some pain or discomfort in your body, consider acupuncture instead of racing to the medicine cabinet. Drugs sometimes only cover the symptoms and don’t deal with the actual problem.

RP Tip: Reach Dr. Chen at his office at 775.982.8255 or hchen@renownn.org. You can also catch Dr. Chen fire spinning with Controlled Burn and other groups in town.

Text by Baldo Bobadilla