16th Annual Patient Day
Your Mother Should Know, Your Doctor Should Know Better!
Patient Day - March 2, 2025
Einhorn Auditorium
Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City
Scientific Director
Dan Martin, MD
Program Director
Tamer Seckin, MD
So yeah. Well, I hope that you all join us tonight from three 30 to six 30 at Ore Restaurant for a patient social, but I want to introduce our next speaker, Winnie Chan. Winnie is a licensed acupuncturist in New York City specializing in women's health and fertility. After battling endometriosis for over a decade and undergoing multiple surgeries, she's now dedicated to sharing her journey and helping others manage chronic pain. Inspired by her own recovery, she empowers patients with knowledge, support, and holistic care to improve their wellbeing. Alright, let's welcome Winnie to the stage.
Hello everybody. My name is Winnie Chen and I'm an acupuncturist based in New York City. Now, before I dive into traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, I want to share something personable. For the past many years, I was sitting in exactly the same seat where you are, not as a practitioner, but as a patient. Since 2017, I attended patient day every single day, every single time, starting my first surgery right here at Lennox Hill Hospital. Today is incredibly special for me because I've been invited by endo, found to stand here before you. It's truly a privilege to be here under the same roof as the incredible healers who saved my life. This is the very room where it all began. Where I met my endo sisters, the woman who welcomed me with open arms, supported me and become my lifelong support system. On the screen behind me, you'll see a glimpse of what my journey has looked like. The photo on the left shows me passed out in the ER on the right, I'm heading in for new cleric
Kidney scan, holding my urine back like a bruise. I'm sorry about this. And on the bottom. And on the bottom, my mom is sleeping in a chair, a position she spent many nights while taking care of me in the er. These pictures don't even begin to capture the complexity of my case. In 2017, I was rushing to the ER for nine hour surgery that involves bladder resection and the removal of severe endometriosis from my pelvic organs. Later I developed kidney sepsis due to complication with my ureter stents and ended up in the ICU. Six months later, it didn't stop. I spent my 30th birthday in the ER undergoing a 13 hour surgery. I woke up covered in wires and tubes with two bags attached to my body, a
Colonoscopy bag for waste, and a bladder bag for urine, and live with the colostomy bag for six months and the urine bag for a year. I've had total seven surgeries since 2017 with endometriosis affecting my diaphragm, bowels, bladder, kidney, er, rectum. I had a total of seven surgeries since the year of 2017, but despite everything, I'm standing here today,
Thanks to my surgeries, my quality of life has drastically improved and I am beyond grateful to be alive. After a few months after having my reversal surgeries, I enrolled in acupuncture master's program to pursue degree in acupuncture. At the same time, I'm a hustler. I continue my full-time career in technology at Microsoft. My message to you is simple. You can't reclaim your life. You will get better. I'm living proof that even hitting rock bottom, you'll rise again. Now I dedicate my life to helping other women with endometriosis, fertility, and OB GYN issues through acupuncture, complimenting the incredible care of western medicine.
Now, what is acupuncture? It's a technique and traditional Chinese medicine that involves inserting thin needles into specific points in your body. The goal is to unblock stagnation, like clearing traffic jams in your system and restoring balance. From a scientific perspective, this is how I always explain it. When people come up to me and ask, what is acupuncture? The human body is a semiconductor. We conduct energy. Think about it. When you rub a balloon in your head, your hair stands up. When you swipe on your phone, it reacts to the heat in your fingers at night. When you lift that blanket, you sometimes see these tiny ec statics, these shocks. That's your body conducting energy. For example, if a patient comes with me, comes to me with severe abdominal cramps that shooting pain down their legs during the period, I use acupuncture needles to unblock stagnation that's causing the discomfort.
Every treatment involves listening to symptoms, checking for improvements, and examining the patient's tongue and pulse, which reviews internal imbalances. They may not be verbally expressed during our treatment session. Acupuncture is a complimentary therapy in your healing journey. It helps regulate hormones. Improve circulation and ensure your body functions into is acupuncture safe. Acupuncture is extremely safe when performed by a licensed practitioner trained in clean needle technique, we use single use disposable needles, eliminating the risk of infection. Now, what does acupuncture feel like during treatment and post-treatment? Now, each session will last about 20, 30 minutes in a calm, relaxing environment. During these sessions, patients often feel dull, ache, a heaviness in their body or even tingling when the needles are placed probably for one or two seconds. These sensations means that the treatment is working. Now, some patients also describe the feeling of warmth or a gentle flow of energy down their legs, which is the body returning to balance.
Imagine there's a lot of block in your shoulder, and after applying needles, we unblock it and you feel the rushed of blood flowing in the right places to balance your body. Now, for endometriosis, patient experiencing bloating, cramps, and pain, I often combine acupuncture with mion. Mion is a therapy that uses heat from burning specific herbs to different channels in your body. It is often used to actually warm the uterus in conjunction with fertility treatments that you're going through. The effects are really immediate with acupuncture. Patients often arrive fatigue and pale and in pain complaining this and feeling lack of energy, but they come after the session, I would see their cheeks flush red and they're more, a lot healthier and sometimes even spring up and say, oh, wow. Magically the pain is gone. I'm going to come back. I know this is true firsthand, and I believe in patients because after my own endo surgeries with the pelvic nerve damage down to my legs, I actually had a cane for about a month and a half after just one session of intellectual acupuncture where my mom took me to Chinatown, New York City to see an acupuncturist.
I was able to walk without that cane. I told my mom, I don't need the can anymore. That was the moment when I truly understand the power of acupuncture. Now, how many sessions do I need? Well, it all really depends. Your response to the treatment, the severity of your condition and skills of the acupuncturists all play a role. Now, every session is tailored to how you feel that day. A good acupuncturist adapts treatment based on your progress. One week we may focus on pain relief. The next, we may work on improving your sleep, reducing your headaches, or even regulating your bladder dysfunction. Each session is like composing a song, different notes, different acupuncture points, all to bring your body into harmony. One myth I also like to talk about, and it's also very important, is the last bullet, right, acupuncture versus dry needling. Now, many practitioners, such as physical therapists in chiros, they also have the opportunity to take a certification course for a few weeks and be able to perform dry needling, but that is very different from acupuncture.
Dry needling is primarily used for muscular pain, orthopedics issue, and those are pretty much acute issues, but acupuncturists, licensed acupuncturists either use the same needles as dried needles, dry, dry needling practitioners, but it's very different. Acupuncturists perform more on the internal issues, chronic issues, autoimmune issues. The licensed acupuncturists complete. The four years of full-time education have an extensive rooted in Chinese medicine principles. We use pulse and tongue to diagnose your history. This is very, very different when a non-licensed acupuncturist often refer you to a dry needling to treat end endometriosis symptoms or chronic pain or autoimmune disease. I would respectfully decline and note. Let's also, I want to talk about how does acupuncture treat endometriosis? Very simple. Promote blood circulation, reduce pain, and regulate hormones. And also at the same time, there are other endo systems that can be treated as well. Digestion with constipation, bloating, post-ops, nausea, I'll talk about that in the next slide. Post-op, nausea, vomit, chronic fatigue, and the first thing of acupuncture school I learned about acupuncture is very, very effective for emotional issues, depression, mood swing, and very important for infertility as well.
For today, I would like to show you two acupuncturist points. That's very, very common, very useful, especially when a post-op during surgeries or even if you feel nauseous, all of a sudden in plain rise or even on boats, if you're on cruises and you feel seasickness, there's a point on the left side called pericardium six, PC six. It's very good for nausea, emotion, sickness, anxiety, and how you locate this point is actually when you lift your hand up, we use your own three fingers. The third finger where the point is located is in between two tendons right here, right? Your palmer's long FCR, and you can massage it and over a few minutes, you'll feel a lot better with nausea. I use this after my surgeries when I decline western drugs, so this has been very effective. The next point is my favorite point. It's called large intestine four. It's on the right side. It's very good for any type of pain management, headache, migraines, neck shoulder pain, menstrual pain relief. Now it's located on the very corner between your thumb and your index finger. On the four corner right here in the triangle. When you press on it for maybe one or two minutes is very good for pain management.
And the key takeaway here is include traditional Chinese medicine as part of your treatment toolbox. Be open about it and always consult with your Western medical licensed practitioner. First, because it's complimentary treatment, acupuncture does, along with pelvic rehab are really complimenting your endo journey. Thank you for allowing me to share my story and I hope this inspires to explore all the possibilities of healing and reclaiming your life. Thank you.
