Great News! We are proud to announce that Heartwood Foundation is the recipient of a community grant from the Ticket for the Cure lottery fund, a State of Illinois program designed to provide assistance to low income women with breast cancer. The program is managed by the Illinois Department of Public Health, Office of Women’s Health. This grant will enable us to expand the Women and Cancer Program to locations throughout greater Chicago.

 
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Essence-Healing, is a Center in Evanston founded in 2005 by Dr.Carla Edwards, M.S., Ph.D., L.Ac.,Dipl O.M., and dedicated to the integrative practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) including acupuncture and herbal medicine and NAET. Dr. Edwards obtained her M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from top U.S. universities and completed her Post-doctoral training at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Biomedical Research. Dr. Edwards was also a Research Scientist at Abbott Laboratories in pharmaceutical drug discovery for over a decade.

Dr. Edwards has a depth of knowledge and understanding of Western medicine, science and research that is unique and distinguishing for a TCM physician. Dr. Edwards completed a rigorous, 3-year full-time, TCM program at Pacific School of Oriental Medicine and is nationally board certified in acupuncture, TCM and herbal medicine. Dr. Edwards has not merely attended cutting-edge seminars for continuing education but has worked in the clinics of leading TCM physicians like Dr. Diane Cridennda and Dr. Richard Tan.

Dr. Edwards completed her residency at the Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital of Zhejiang Province, also known as the Red Cross Hospital in Hangzhou, at Zhejiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This is China's first, three-level, integrated combination of Chinese and Western Medicine for hospital and outpatient care.

Dr. Edwards is a fellow of the Society for Acupuncture Research and is an active member of Acupuncturists without Borders. Dr. Edwards is dedicated to educate, promote, advance and disseminate scientific inquiry into TCM and to participating in service work in this county and around the world.

Dr. Edwards has a depth of understanding, knowledge and compassion that is both a unique and broad combination for a TCM physician. This combination of attributes adds value to each patient treatment.

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Both medical systems have important roles to play in the health and well being of patients. The correct application of each medical system to the treatment of disease is key to the clinical efficacy of the treatment and cost-effectiveness of treatment for the patient.

TCM was originally the medicine of the Emperors of China for over 2000 years. In ancient China, the TCM physicians sole function was to keep the Emperor virile and well. If the TCM physician failed to keep the Emperor well, the TCM physician did not get a second chance to make amends with the Emperor! The function of the TCM physician and the medicine they practiced was to keep patients well before disease developed by balancing and strengthening root vitality. The nature of this root vitality has yet to be investigated by scientific experiment using the scientific method. The scientific method is the basis of randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled studies. It is important to remember that the scientific method demands that experiment must prove a hypothesis false in order to make a determination that the hypothesis is false.

Western or Functional Medicine continues to ease patient suffering and save lives through the miracles of pharmaceutical drugs, vaccinations, biomedical testing and surgery. When a devastating injury occurs, surgical repairs can be made. Severe pain can be treated instantly with powerful medicines. When a tumor develops, surgeons can cut it out and replace body parts. Pharmaceutical drugs can be used to suppress tumor growth and thereby extend the life of a patient. Infections and communicable diseases can be diagnosed with biomedical tests and treated with pharmaceutical drugs and immunizations. Vital signs and biochemical levels can be measured with great precision and accuracy.

Yet, even with these live-saving treatments, and miracle drugs, we have observed that some patients also experience adverse side effects from the pharmaceutical medicines that are prescribed to them to help them treat the original symptoms. Once the medication is stopped, the symptoms return suggesting that the sickness or disease was not really treated where the sickness arose in the body. Sometimes a patient has been prescribed multiple medications. For some unforeseen reason, these medications interfere with one another and lead to another set of undesirable symptoms. We have observed that there are times when biomedical testing reveals no health abnormality or disease although the patient reports feeling symptomatic or sick. Their physicians will order more lab tests to investigate. If these tests don't reveal disease, the patient is told the "good news" that they aren't sick. This often leaves the patient feeling helpless and ignored by their physicians because they know something does not feel right about their health. The physicians become frustrated by their inability to help these patients .

The Greatest Strength of TCM is in Preventative Care or Wellcare.
In addition to wellcare, TCM can effectively treat acute disorders or illness, pain, side -effects of pharmaceutical medications, pre- and post operative recovery.

If you have had any of these experiences, TCM may be able to help you regain that feeling that you are "yourself" again through the individually based treatments that TCM has to offer. If you are told that you must have surgery, TCM can help strengthen your body to aid in pre and post-surgical recovery. TCM can help manage mild and moderate pain syndromes. If you are prone to side-effects from medications, TCM can help lower the severity of the side effects and strengthen the factors in you that predispose you to these side-effects. TCM can help strengthen your vitality so you have the energy to accomplish your goals, and fortify your body to ward off colds, flu and other common illnesses. In addition to acupuncture and dietary/lifestyle suggestions, TCM uses balanced herbal formulas that gradually treat the symptom at the root cause of the problem without interfering with most pharmaceutical medications. These formulas do not cause side effects , cannot be overused and are not intended for indefinite use.

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Just as periodic checkups can help tooth decay before it becomes painful and lead to serious problems, regular TCM or acupuncture checkups can help identify, rebalance, and correct little problems before they become bigger ones.

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