Staff writer
Over 4,000 years ago a Chinese soldier with a bad cough was accidentally stabbed in the lung. The cough went away, and the theory of acupuncture — when certain points of the body are stimulated, healing for other parts takes place — was born.
“There are 12 channels in the body through which energy and blood flow,” said Kodi Panzer, Hillsboro chiropractor and acupuncture expert. “Acupuncture stimulates points in those channels, reduces inflammation, and helps energy and blood flow in the body as it should.”
Panzer said she offered acupuncture as a natural healing option for her patients and many had great results with it.
“I recommend it for a variety of different problems,” she said. “It can relieve colic in babies, headaches, sinus and allergy problems, bedwetting, foot problems, and stiffness and soreness from other medical conditions.”
Panzer said there were common misconceptions about acupuncture, the most prevalent being that it hurt.
“Most of the time I don’t even use needles,” she said. “I have an electrical stimulation machine that conducts electricity through the points. It takes less than three minutes to stimulate the entire body as we do each point only 10 to 20 seconds each.”
Needling, a more common method of acupuncture stimulation also carries misconceptions for those who have never been exposed to this type of healing before.
“I use very small rounded needles,” Panzer said. “The skin is not pierced, but rather pushed away from the rounded end of the needle. Most of the time, people don’t even feel it.”
Panzer, who often gives herself a healing acupuncture treatment when she has a backache or neck ache, said the feeling of an acupuncture needle was that of soothing warmth.
“It is a very good pain reliever,” she said. “I sometimes use it after I have been running and my feet are aching. It is amazing how quickly it can help the body recover from strain.”
Panzer shared an experience of a patient who came to her for acupuncture treatment of a thumb injury.
“He had almost chopped off his thumb in an accident,” she said. “It was healed when he came to me, but he had no movement in it. After one treatment of less than one minute of stimulation he was able to reclaim 50 percent of his motion. After a second treatment he was able to cross his thumb over his hand and got full motion back.”
Panzer said acupuncture could also be utilized to enhance weight loss efforts.
“There are 200 points on the ear that affect the whole body,” she said. “Certain points can be stimulated to reduce cravings and lessen the hand-to-mouth habit.”
Panzer said the success of using acupuncture to combat obesity depended on the client’s dedication to the program.
“The client has to make a lifestyle change for this to work,” she said. “The timing has to be right and then acupuncture can make it an easier process.”
In addition to offering acupuncture at her Hillsboro office, Panzer is also a licensed chiropractor. She practices cold lazar therapy and acupressure as additional natural healing options.
“I listen to patients and we come up with a program of treatment that will benefit them the most,” she said. “I just provide the stimulation to the points where they are needed; then the body does the healing.”
Panzer opened her chiropractic office in Hillsboro three years ago. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University and received further training from Palmer College in Iowa. She logged 100 hours of acupuncture care at Logan Chiropractic College and 200 hours at Acupuncture Society of America in Kansas City.