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February Updates
Clinic updates, help for allergies & colds, and a few book & tea recommendations.
Kate Thomas
February 07, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
Hello!
This weather has been so chaotic! Is it winter? Is it spring? Depends on the day! If you’re feeling the effects of our up-and-down weather in the form of allergies, colds, and just generally feeling physically meh, 1) you’re not alone, and 2) I have a link below to my most recent blog post with lots of ideas on how to help keep your body healthy during this strange weather. (Mental meh can be covered in a future post - let me know in the poll below if you’d like to see it!)
As always, I love hearing back from you - you’re always invited to respond with thoughts, ideas, questions, or anything else that comes up!
Take care,
Kate Thomas, LAc
P.S. If you’d like to jump to a specific section of the newsletter, you can now click the links below - it will take you to a webpage version, where you can jump right to what you’re looking for.
In this newsletter:
If you've been to the clinic recently, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few minutes to leave a Google review! Google reviews make a huge difference for small businesses - it helps businesses show up when someone searches. If you've already left a review, thank you so much!
Clinic Updates
Social media update: As a heads up, I am no longer updating or monitoring the clinic's (or my personal) social media accounts! All the updates for the clinic will be on my website, on the blog, and through my newsletter. You can reach me by email or phone; current patients can also message me within the Patient Portal. There’s more info about why I chose to stop using social media in the January blog entry, if you’re curious. (Ironically, I can’t disable the social media sharing in this newsletter! But, I tried.)
Updated Informed Consent form: There’s an updated Informed Consent form for current patients to sign in to the Patient Portal. The most significant change is towards the end, where I define a “current patient” and list a few reasons care may lapse or be ended. There’s more about this in the January blog entry, too. This form went into effect on February 1, so please sign it if you haven’t yet!
New Patient appointment availability: I don’t have any availability for new patients in February! I have space in March, though - click here to see available appointment times.
A heads up to current in-person patients: I am adding security cameras to the clinic's lobby and my office area. This is just a precaution - I am alone in the clinic often, and it will provide visibility to the lobby when I am in the treatment rooms with you! I like to be transparent, so I wanted to let you know of the change. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns - I am happy to provide more info.
Winter Wellness Class Update
Monday, February 3 was the first seasonal node of spring, called, appropriately, Beginning of Spring (立春)! I intended to increase the Winter Wellness class price then because Winter is technically over - but I completely forgot. 🤷♀️ So, grab the Winter Wellness class while it’s still $35 - the price will increase to $50 on February 11!
I will be releasing a Spring class soon! My goal is to have a seasonal wellness class for each season.
Recent Blog Entries
Vote for Upcoming Blog Topics!
What should I write more about in the blog in February?Chinese medicine's perspective on... (click a link to vote) |
Recently: Books & Tea
Reading
I’m still working my way through Four Thousand Weeks* by Oliver Burkeman! I’ve been jumping around in my non-fiction books, so I haven’t made much progress.
Here is a good video with the author talking about myths of productivity and how we’ll never really catch up on our to-do lists.
His idea of a “done list” is something I have practiced for years and learned about originally from author Esme Waijun Wang. It’s a particularly good strategy for people who are neurodivergent, chronically ill, or otherwise feel like they aren’t “doing enough” (whatever that means).
I also picked up The Menopause Brain* by Lisa Mosconi from the library. Often, peri- and menopause info online is nonsense or trying to sell you something, but Mosconi is legit. This book is focused on the impacts of menopause on the brain (obviously) - which is much wider reaching than often gets acknowledged!
She released one of the (maybe the?) first studies in 2021 looking at the changes in the brain during the menopause transition, and last year released a study on the effect of changing estrogen levels on the brain throughout peri-/menopause. In contrast to those studies, her book is very easy to read. 😂
She also gets extra points for discussing (briefly) care during menopause specific to trans and gender-diverse people who are utilizing gender-affirming hormone therapy - something not often discussed in menopause books. (But should be!)
If you’re interested in seeing more about Chinese medicine’s view on perimenopause & menopause, let me know! Chinese medicine has a lot to say about it, and has been helping manage this transition for people for a long, long time.
Drinking
I’m back to drinking oolong tea lately! It’s tied to the Lung, and it’s delicious. All of the ones I am drinking right now from other companies seem to be out of stock, so I don’t want to recommend them. But I’ve enjoyed Verdant Tea’s oolongs in the past, and I didn’t know it before writing this section, but all their oolong tea is 15% through 2/13!
I like their flavor graphs - they help me guess what the tea will taste like when buying online and are usually spot on. They also form direct, long-term relationships with their tea farmers, which is a big plus for me. If you’re more of a black tea fan, their Loshan Black tea is great. But, candidly, I was not a fan of their tea blends I tried. (None of those are affiliate links, I just really love to talk about tea! 😂)
That’s all for now! As always, feel free to email me back with any thoughts or questions.
Take care,
Kate
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