How Cupping and Cold-Water Therapy Work with Dr. Tom Ingegno on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger

was enrolled, you know, there was no looking back.

 

Manon Bolliger  02:54

Okay. So, was that a coincidental postcard? Or?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  02:59

I would say, many of the big things that have happened in my career have been an act of serendipity. We’ll call it that.

 

Manon Bolliger  03:07

It’s more likely than coincidence, I don’t…

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  03:10

I was I was being driven and it wasn’t always me doing the driving.

 

Manon Bolliger  03:18

So what is it that you, or how long you’ve been like 20 years or 25?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  03:23

It’ll be 23 years in May.

 

Manon Bolliger  03:27

Amazing. So, what would you say that you enjoy the most about your practice?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  03:34

In my practice, specifically, I like the fact that in my clinic, I can evolve it to be whatever it wants, right? So, we offer a lot of services that are…I don’t like using the word cutting edge. I think it’s used so much. We do cryotherapy, we have cold plunge, we have saunas, we have red light therapy. And in my head, that all makes sense to me, from an East Asian medicine standpoint, right? Treating the whole body doing something in an attempt to balance something else out. Rather than just, this is something new and trendy. I mean, there’s plenty of new and trendy services, we don’t add them just because of that. It has to work with our central theme, which is reducing inflammation, improving circulation, regulating immune system function, you know, and reducing stress and almost every one of those services hits more than one of those things. And all of those principles are something that happens with acupuncture.

 

Manon Bolliger  04:36

So, you know, I have a kind of an open discussion on sometimes it’s the nitty gritty of setting up your business sometimes it’s a fascinating subject or something, but I am really tempted to ask you because it sounds like it’s a big thing to organize these separate, please. So how did all that manifest? And can you share it?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  05:08

I will tell you a story about one of my other big influences in my life, which was my mentor. Acupuncture, even today is not for the faint of heart as far as practitioners. We still have a high burnout rate. Many of us don’t make it past five years.

 

Manon Bolliger  05:28

Is that right? I didn’t know that.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  05:30

Yeah, and it’s better than it was when I started. And certainly, having insurance coverage and seeing all this great data and studies that are coming out that are saying things that are even better than I could have hoped about acupuncture have helped. But having a mentor, somebody that really walked the walk and you know, he lived in China for 12 years. He lived in Japan for a decade, and he studied acupuncture that whole time. He was licensed in four different countries. Within that when he brought acupuncture to our school, right, you know, he was brought back by a friend of his that he met in the 80s. In Japan. He kind of guided me and said, Look, this is this is how you survive and not in those words. But here’s how you get your skills up. Here’s how you talk about what you do. And when I was…before I signed this lease, because this this particular incarnation of my clinic started in 2016. I had talked to him about three options, I was entertaining. This big swing, the place that I’m in now versus cutting the six rooms, I had down to two rooms, getting rid of all my renters and just grinding. And the third option, and I don’t want to get too political. But this was before our previous president was even a serious contender. I said, Oh, he’s not going to become president. But just in case should I just go to Costa Rica, you know, up the whole family and move. And you know, I could see 10 patients a week and probably do okay, there. And you know, my wife’s a Montessori teacher, she can teach in one of the bilingual Montessori schools and well, yeah, you know, and he looked at me said, Well, you, you like being around other people. So that two-room clinic is going to drive you nuts, you’ll get so lonely. And then he said, and yeah, it sounds great to sit on the beach all day, he’s gonna I’d give you three months before your lighting fires. So, without, without pushing me towards the third option. He had me leaning in that direction. And I had to learn a lot of business. That’s not a concentration. There are some practitioners some disciplines where like, you get a lot of business school when you’re getting your license.

 

Manon Bolliger  08:02

Yeah, like our practice.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  08:03

Yeah, I didn’t want to I don’t want to throw any rocks for sure. But yeah, and that’s not like we didn’t know what to charge. We didn’t know what we should be paying for rent, we didn’t know how to structure our companies. Hell, my business guy didn’t even teach me how to bill insurance. So, there was a steep learning curve. And then to add in other services, was this…it was a monster. I would joke and say I had hair before it all started, but I didn’t. But certainly, it wore me down for a while. And there was a lot of figuring out those little moving pieces. Like, we wanted to make sure that people got the most out of their treatments. And how do we organize even the services together, and we came up with stacking. And it was this concept of somebody came in and said X, Y, and Z. Well, here’s a stack that goes well together. So, if you’re coming in, you know, and you work out a lot, and you maybe don’t have any injuries, but you need some recovery. This is what we recommend, here’s the price, right? We have memberships, which is like functionally like a gym, you know, it’s, well, why because I want you to come in to use the stuff. I’m not going with that gym model. Like I want millions of members that never show up. I want people that are committed to their health that know that when they come in regularly, can check in with us and talk to the staff and say, This is how I’m feeling what do you recommend? And try to re define that paradigm where like, I go, and I get my blood work and I get my blood pressure checked. And, you know, maybe I get some extra exam because I’m a certain age into here’s the snapshot of your health, you know, taking it from that model to how do we actively guide you down the road you want. Which is really how acupuncture and all of East Asian medicine really excels. Don’t wait until you’re broken. Come in. Get the services you need beforehand. And hopefully you sidestep all of that. And yeah, we after a few years, and I will say COVID kind of reframed things for a lot of people, and they started to think like that, and because of that our clinic is, is doing really well now.

 

Manon Bolliger  10:22

Wow, that’s great. I mean, it’s a big ordeal. I mean, I also had a clinic. And, yeah, there’s steps, you know, it was a smaller clinic, when I…same kind of thing. And then you think, okay, yikes, we could do this, and we sort of split the space, and then we work, you know, these hours, or maybe we offer we are open every day minus one, but we’re just a few more people.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  10:49

The evolution is, is the craziest part of it, you know, like, how do I grow this sanely? I am sorry, to cut you off there.

 

Manon Bolliger  10:57

No, but that’s, that’s the that’s why I was very tempted to hear your story. And then, you know, we thought, okay, it’d be great to have services that we believe people would benefit from, you know, that are available to them. So that it is prevention, you know, so very much the idea that you that you have, and you’re succeeding in. So, but I think that is the model of the future. I think, you know, I mean, they say in Chinese medicine, you know, you don’t pay. I’m not saying we can do it exactly, but you don’t pay till you get sick, you know? The way I’m looking at it, you know.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  11:37

It’s the idea that we invest in staying healthy, right. You know, some people get it, right. I don’t eat this, or I, you know, this is my diet, or I go to the gym regularly, but they’re still missing pieces. Right. You know, and I think that’s where we’re starting to see…and I, you know, I used to be big into the term biohacking. And then it became just like this kind of like alpha male BS. And I was like, no, no, no, this should be accessible to everyone. Not just Silicon Valley bros. And, you know, like, even like the cold plunge, like we see all oh a tough guy getting the cold water. And I’m like, Yeah, but little old ladies can do it, too. And it has, depending on why you’re doing it, the outcomes you’re looking for are very different. But it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be accessible to everyone.

 

Manon Bolliger  12:28

Do you want to get in a little bit on that? Because I just got back in summer I was in parts of Europe, where there’s lots of availability for that type of water baths and all kinds of things. Tell us a little bit about why would people want to do it? What’s the benefit?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  12:48

Yeah. So, this was funny, because I was recently interviewed, and they interviewed a physical therapist who happened to work at the medical conglomerate, let’s call it that sponsored the news. So, guess who, guess who got their title included? And guess who didn’t? So, I was just the owner of the place. And this was Dr. so and so. But she said, there’s no research on it. I’m like, wait a minute. I had a whole bunch of articles on PubMed that I was ready to share. But in a 10 second clip, we didn’t go through it. Within that one of the biggest things that we’re using it for is reduction of inflammation. Right. And that’s off the bat, right. And it’s been used for nearly forever, we think, you know, there is something about putting ice on forever, but we’re talking about brief cold exposure, water under 60 degrees Fahrenheit, seems to be enough to do the trick. And within that, we’re basically acting kind of like a pump, right? That cold constricts the tissue forces inflammatory markers, like cytokines, lactic acid, what have you back into the bloodstream to get circulated out. Now when we get out, there’s a rebound our body wants to warm back up, it opens up those blood vessels pumps fresh blood in, hopefully that blood is properly oxygenated and has enough nutrients in it from going to the intestines, and it helps reduce inflammation and repair tissue. People are also using it for the mental effects, right? It does stimulate neurotransmitter production. I’ve seen something that saying it helps with neuroplasticity as well. But we’re seeing a lot of benefits that people just get a rush and they feel better after it you know. So, we like to use it for a bunch of reasons. I honestly have a whole-body cryotherapy machine and we have that first believe it or not. And I will say the hit that you get of the cold is worse in you know 40-degree water than it is in a negative 256-degree liquid nitrogen cooled chamber. So, the benefits are similar a lot of musculoskeletal a lot of workout recovery is mainly what we’re seeing in the clinic, we’re also seeing a lot of chronic illness injury. You know, so chronic Lyme, long COVID. And a lot of those people are getting some good success with cold exposure therapy.

 

Manon Bolliger  15:25

As in like the people who took the shot and may have had some of the impacts as well?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  15:32

Both. Both sides of it. So, what I’m seeing is more people that have had long term effects from getting COVID. But I do have a couple of immunocompromised people that, you know, I think, given the time might have made the right decision to get the vaccine but had a vaccine reaction, you know, and recently, the one that I’m thinking of right off the top of my head, got the first two was fine, got the third, and that’s where she had the big reaction. And she had chronic mold infection. She has ABS chronic Epstein Barr, and, you know, we’re talking about things that like may sound common to us, and some Western medical practitioners say that doesn’t happen. Right? Okay, well, then why is this patient falling apart?

 

Manon Bolliger  16:19

It seems to instigate it, an acceleration of whatever is latent in people, which is why there’s so many turbo cancers and…

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  16:30

It’s such a weird, it’s such a weird thing. And you know, we’re gonna look back at this 30-40 years from now and go, Wow, we didn’t even we didn’t even know what the hell we were doing.

 

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Manon Bolliger  17:49

I think that’s coming out now, actually, at least, you know now that there’s a bit finally a bit of research that is coming out. It seems to be showing. Yeah, it’s quite troublesome. And I think, you know, important thing is that there are solutions that help people you know, so I think the doing the cold therapy is really important. What else do you do you use water in any other way or?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  18:25

Our clinic…so hydrogen is a weird one, I have a friend. So, we have red light therapy. And I have a friend that I know through a business organization who developed a machine that’s red-light therapy, inhaled hydrogen, it’s a zero-gravity table that has full spectrum electromagnetic frequency pumping through it. He paid a sound engineer to do binaural beats and guided meditation. And that unit is very expensive. He’s trying to sell it to people worth, you know, eight to nine figures. But hopefully there’ll be some clinic models coming out. Hydrogen is a really great one. I love that stuff. It’s interesting to see in clinical practice, they do use it in injections into acupuncture points.

 

Manon Bolliger  19:22

Really? I didn’t know that.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  19:23

Yeah, so some, some crazy stuff and you know, even ozone, but ozone is kind of controversial here in Maryland, unfortunately. But within that, you know that as far as wet therapies, our clinic simply doesn’t have the plumbing. So, our cold plunge tub is pretty easy. We run a drain out the door to clean the tub. You know, we refill it from a hose from the sink, but I did want to bring in float tanks. We are running out of square footage very quickly, maybe in the next incarnation. And I love float tanks so much for the mental health aspects as well.

 

Manon Bolliger  20:06

Then what about hydrotherapy where you’re mixing the cold and the heat and also the electric charge and stuff.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  20:13

So, we don’t do any electric current with our setup. But we do contrast therapy. So, a lot of times we’ll have people do either cold plunge or the cryotherapy first, go in the sauna, and then get back into the cold plunge. And the idea is we’re treating the body almost like we’re creating an artificial pump, right? How strong can we get everything to constrict and then dilate and constrict, again, to kind of pump in and out fresh blood and stagnant blood for that.

 

Manon Bolliger  20:51

So how do you…so like, how do you do a treatment plan? For example, somebody comes in with whatever it might be, name it.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  21:02

So, there’s, there’s a little bit for like to borrow a term from Western medicine, there is a little bit of triage, we do have a lot of people that come in, and they want a specific service, right? This is what I want. Okay, we’re more than happy to accommodate. If you want more, you want to have a conversation with us, we’re here. We do have a lot of people that come in and they’ll do a consultation, well, you got so many things, I read 10 of them, and they all look like it’s something I can use. And that’s where you start to get into the questions of like, well, what are your goals? You know, like, let’s really figure out what you’re trying to do here. Because look, if you had a hip replacement, we can definitely get you out of some more pain, hopefully increase mobility, we’re not growing a new hip. Right. But within that, how well do you tolerate the cold? How well do you tolerate the heat? How much time are you willing to give us a week? What’s your budget is even a big question. Right? So, with the acupuncture, at least I can hopefully fingers crossed bill insurance. With everything else, these are not services that are recognized by the American healthcare system. So, you’re not, you know, yeah, you know, and can we get you the most bang for your buck. And that’s really where we’re trying to figure that out. So, because we’re one of the few clinics that are combining things in this way, there is a bit of a learning curve for us, too.

 

Manon Bolliger  22:36

Yeah.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  22:37

And you’re really trying to be as honest and open with everything. But how much can I do for you is gonna depend on how often you can come in what your budget is. But we want to be open and honest. And if we get people to come in, at least for the acupuncture, and you know, maybe do the membership, they’re able to come in once a week, get both acupuncture and combine that with a service, and then we can kind of play, you know, oh, try this service today. If this rocks your world, we’ll keep doing it. Right, one of the things that we do is exercise with oxygen therapy. We used to have a hyperbaric machine and hyperbaric is great. To use it the right way, you probably need to be in it for an hour, five to seven days a week. Who’s got that kind of time? So, exercise with oxygen therapy gets about 433% more oxygen into the serum of the blood by using a weird trick of starving your red blood cells to put it bluntly. So, you’ll sprint at high altitude air 14% oxygen, and you start to lose the oxygen on the red blood cells, which triggers your blood to become more basic, off gases co2 better, absorbs oxygen better, you then recover pure oxygen. And not only recover that on the red blood cells, but you stockpile it into the liquid part of the blood. You do that for cycles, keep increasing the amount of oxygen and instead of only lasting for about three hours, which is what a hyperbaric session will do. This will last up to three days. So, we’d be able to give you more service in a shorter period of time.

 

Manon Bolliger  24:15

I didn’t know that trick. That’s great.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  24:17

It’s a weird one. And I like…I honestly when I heard of the company, I called them, and I believe I said you’re telling me you can get more oxygen into the blood than a hyperbaric and I think that’s bullshit. And then he sent me a bunch of studies. You know, I mean, you know, that’s, that’s really what we want to see. We want to make sure that we’re you know, as purchasing the equipment that we’re not selling something that we can’t deliver on.

 

Manon Bolliger  24:46

So, yeah, this is great information. So, what is like, a great day at the clinic for you? What does that look like?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  24:57

So, we’re like knock on wood, we’ve been waiting I’m pretty busy. And as I’ve been there eight years now, and I find myself and this was a hard pill to swallow, if I want to help more people, I’m doing less of the clinical stuff. So, our team is really growing. And even today, I had a busy day, I think I treated about 10 people. But the clinic saw close to 35. So that’s a good day, right? Where I have enough people to help with the work. And I can come do things like podcasts and, you know, write books, and, you know, try to get articles published, and those kinds of things to advance the field, hopefully help more people. And, you know, feedback to the clinic, because at the end of the day, I have to keep those doors open. You know.

 

Manon Bolliger  25:49

Well, that’s the balance, and it’s also adjusting to the, to the change, right? It’s like, cut down to grow, then it changes. And it’s, it’s quite a dance.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  26:02

It is, and it’s and it’s so unique for everyone, because I have friends that have been out as long as I have and we’re all having this conversation. But the manifestation of the change looks different for everybody.

 

Manon Bolliger  26:13

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, very interesting. So, what about a case or something that’s completely surprised you? You know, I mean, not surprised. The typical conventional medicine, allopath, right, that who doesn’t fully necessarily believe that anything can be done, but you plenty of experience that knows people get better.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  26:40

I, you know, one of the things that still weirds me out, and I just got a phone call I normally get two phone calls a month is what I’ve been averaging lately. And it’s for breech birth. And I, you know, it’s something that a lot of midwives and doulas know. And it’s something that there is actual research on, we burn moxibustion on a point on the toe. And there’s about a 70% success rate of flipping the baby. And it’s such a weird, niche thing that so many people don’t know. And even, let’s say with schooling, I’ve probably been in and around the field for almost 27 years. It still amazes me at how well it works. It’s you know, I’m literally not even penetrating the surface of the skin on the mother. I’m heating a point. And somehow that baby knows the turn. And every time it happens, it’s still like magic to me. I know, I don’t know if I was going in the right direction with the answer.

 

Manon Bolliger  27:54

Absolutely. No, no, I was trying to think what point that would be.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  27:57

So, it’s bladder 67. It’s on the pinky toe. My teachers would add a second point in which is like the number one point for women which is spleen six. You can’t use that in the first couple of trimesters if you’re pregnant, but at the end, it works pretty well. And it is such a great thing. Saturday, I have somebody coming from two hours away from me to do this for 10 minutes.

 

Manon Bolliger  28:30

What about cupping. What is it because you have a book on it? Yeah. We have like five minutes left.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  28:38

You got it. So, one of the things…one of the things I absolutely love about cupping is this is everybody’s medicine. Right? This is over 4000 years old. First mentioning, we don’t even know exactly where it came from. We know it was in the Ebers papyrus in 1515 BCE in Egypt. There’s texts in Persian going back several 1000 years. Hippocrates wrote a ton about it. And it’s all over the world. And when I was teaching at an acupuncture College in Manhattan, we had a lot of international students, every single one of them would come in didn’t matter what part of the world they were from, whether it was Africa, Asia, Russia, you know, grandma used to do that. And slightly different variation. But basically, cupping is creating a vacuum and sucking the skin up into that vacuum. And what we see happening is we create a space between the skin the fascia, the fascia, and the muscle, and any stagnation, any lactic acid buildup, any metabolic waste that’s in that tissue gets drawn into this space that’s created and our body has a better time cleaning that up. And what ends up happening in a closed system is we pull fresh blood into that tissue below it. And you know, I mentioned that, you know, I like studies on things we’ve had in the last few years, from 2017 to 2020 to 2022, systematic reviews on cupping that are showing that like, yes, it is 100% effective, well, not 100%, nothing’s 100%. But yes, it will definitely help with neck pain, it’ll definitely help with low back pain. Traditionally, we’re using it for allergies, we’re using it for stress, we’re using it for respiratory disorders, digestive disorders. And this is something that if grandmas around the world can do it, you can do it at home, too, which is why I have a book coming out in January, to teach people how to do it without fire. You know, so this is the safer version. It’s cost effective, it’s something that you can do on your loved ones. It’s something you can do to yourself given depending on where you’re going to put the cups. And it can positively impact your life.

 

Manon Bolliger  30:58

And you do have to use sort of the cups that you can get from China town basically,

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  31:03

I yeah, if you want glass cups, I probably have a few of the silicone ones in reach that you literally just press on the body. So, technology has really advanced the four-thousand-year-old. But you can still do it with the good old fashioned. I have a couple of buffalo horns that I keep at the office just for fun. You can do it with bamboo. You can do it with a there’s a colleague of mine that is on Instagram as art of acupuncture who I’ve seen him do these beautiful champagne flutes on people’s back, which is just for fun. But there’s a lot that can be done. And it’s a simple technique. And once you have it, you own it. It’s yours for the rest of your life.

 

Manon Bolliger  31:46

Yeah. Great. Well, so name of the book again.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  31:51

So very simple. The Cupping Book. I said why beat around the bush. Let’s call it what it is.

 

Manon Bolliger  32:00

Exactly. I’m sure there’s been another one.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  32:03

Surprisingly, there is not.

 

Manon Bolliger  32:09

Great. Okay. Well, anyway, thank you so much for like sharing also you’re the business part of a successful practice that is really focused on helping people because I think, yeah, it’s not that straightforward.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  32:24

Never, nothing in healthcare is straightforward.

 

Manon Bolliger  32:28

And I think it is kind of the model for the future. So, you know, it is we need to be thinking about maintenance, health, prevention, all of that.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  32:39

And I think we’re writing that current too. I believe that they’re going to see a lot more home devices. That will get us in that arena, too.

 

Manon Bolliger  32:48

Yeah, I think so too, if that’s true and more conscious people. You know, I have always thought, you know, we’re supposed to be teachers that teach about health. At least that’s the idea of the the notion of Doctor, right?

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  33:03

Yeah. Non Nocera. Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger  33:04

Yeah. Let’s Well, let’s do it. You know, the more conscious people, the more people that will come for help. If they need it. At least they know their bodies can heal. They can start somewhere. Great. Okay. Well, thank you so much.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  33:22

Oh, thank you. This was so much fun.

 

Manon Bolliger  33:24

Okay, bye.

 

Dr. Tom Ingegno  33:27

All right. Take care.

Ending

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