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Meet Andrew Pollak of Immortal Medicine in Boulder

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Pollak.

Andrew, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My background is in linguistics, specifically east Asian languages such as Japanese, Korean and Mandarin Chinese. This backdrop landed me in many a metropolis, notably Tokyo and Seoul, where I sought work as an English teacher and freelance translator. In the classroom setting, I found that I was drawing a following of students who were less interested in proper grammar and more in need of sharing their life stories and being heard on a deep level. What unfolded there were tales of sickness, loss, trauma and the longing for real connection beyond pleasantries. Once I exhausted the ESL textbooks, I returned to the US to study the healing arts, beginning with Zen Shiatsu and Swedish massage. In massage school, I kept encountering the mantra, “we hold our issues in our tissues,” which reminded me that I was in the right place to study the mind-body connection.

After practicing massage for seven years in spas, private practice and corporate settings – notably the Google Boulder office – I sought out to expand my scope of practice and take on more responsibility for my clients’ preventative health and well-being. This occurred shortly after the passing of my beloved godfather, Dr. Robert Tam, who practiced a very hands-on form of osteopathic medicine (he could diagnose by touching the abdomen as well as by reading blood lab reports). I felt the gentle tap on my shoulder and recommitted to my education by enrolling in the local acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine school.

I obtained a master’s degree in Chinese medicine after four years of study, passed all my board exams in the last term of school, applied for my Colorado-State license and began practicing acupuncture the day after my license arrived in the mail. Once in the real mix of a bustling practice, I realized that I needed to deepen my studies in evidence-informed treatment to get longer-lasting and more effective results in the challenging areas of mental health and reproductive wellness, so I enrolled in the doctorate program at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) in San Francisco. In my studies at ACTCM, I did original clinical research in using acupuncture and concurrent Chinese herbal medicine to treat depression, anxiety, tinnitus, female infertility and benign prostatic hyperplasia.

To bring it full circle, once in clinical practice, I began translating original research from Japanese to English for the North American Journal of Oriental Medicine (NAJOM) of Vancouver, Canada. This publication features case studies and innovative methodologies for treating common, difficult diseases with traditional Japanese acupuncture and moxibustion. To complement this desk translation work, I also began to take acupuncture students and practitioners over to Japan to study women’s health and pain management directly with senior practitioners, specifically Dr. Katai Shuichi and Dr. Iwashita Shumei. I am currently in the process of translating a textbook on treating breech presentation with acupuncture and moxibustion for Dr. Katai Shuichi. Stay tuned for the English-language release!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road has had its bumps and dizzying detours but the path has never veered from taking me deeper into the heart of understanding mind-body disease mechanisms. Minor obstacles have presented in the form of license requirements varying State to State, with certain States maintaining their own board exams and curriculum requirements above and beyond the national accreditation. Although circumstances brought me out to California many times throughout 2018 and 2019, I could never practice acupuncture there with solely a Colorado license. Additionally, an acupuncturist’s scope of practice varies from State to State in interesting ways; in California, acupuncturists are permitted to treat animals such as cats, dogs and horses under the supervision of a licensed veterinarian however this is strictly prohibited in the State of Colorado.

More pertinent struggles have arisen in the process of working in multiple integrative medicine facilities where care is not divided equally nor concurrently between different practitioners. This is especially the case when the patient must pay out of pocket for all expenses and cannot afford physical therapy, chiropractic care, nutrition therapy, massage, manual osteopathy and acupuncture all at the same time. Thus these patients will self-select among different modalities from budgetary restrictions rather than from the counsel of clinical recommendations. In addition to the struggle that this healthcare model places upon patients to discern guidance from Self over counsel from clinicians – especially when the two streams are at odds – acupuncture clinicians must take on the following conflict inherent to our medicine: “the map is not the territory.” In practice, this means that the location of points as learned in textbooks may or may not correspond to the actual location on the patient’s body, and that great subtlety of tacticle diagnosis is required to identify the location of the most powerfully accurate and alive pressure point, which varies person by person.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Immortal Medicine – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
My specialty lies in using acupuncture and herbal medicine to treat bewildering mind-body conditions that require an equally intuitive and evidence-based approach to care. In pain management, I have treated many patients for neck, shoulder, low back, knee, wrist and ankle pain with lasting benefits. In cardiology, I have had excellent results in regulating patients’ blood pressure, improving sleep, strengthening cardiac function and reducing the occurrence of atrial fibrillations.

In pulmonary medicine, I have seen excellent outcomes in managing chronic reoccurring respiratory infections, knocking out colds and flu and improving sinus pain and congestion. In reproductive health, I have witnessed much transformation in patients with sexual trauma, pain and dysfunction as well as assisting women with painful irregular cycles who are trying to conceive for the first time. I have also observed the gradual improvement in vision with reduced floaters and blurry episodes, a reduction in the overall volume or level of disturbance from ringing in the ears and reduction of gas, bloating and digestive discomfort in IBS patients.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
No big changes here, just the persistent refinement and strengthening in areas with the greatest clinical outcomes. I am currently folding a new modality into my practice to deepen the work with needles and moxibustion: Acutonics. Acutonics is a gentle, innovative system of complementary medicine which uses medical-grade tuning forks in place of needles to provide a deep-reaching, sound-healing attunement. Mapped onto the body’s meridian system, Acutonics accesses deep reserves of vital energy via key acupressure points and applies steady sound vibrations in static holds and moving sweeps to recalibrate the base state of the body. Each fork is tuned not to the keys of a piano but rather to the cyclical frequencies of the planets, asteroids, sun and moons in orbit with one another. These celestial frequencies add another layer of archetypal influence into the acupressure points to make medicinal use of the unique mythological qualities of each planetary body.

I plan on continuing to translate more medical works from Japanese to English, including textbooks, case studies and clinical manuals. I also intend on offering a greater variety of hands-on technique classes with Japanese acupuncturists, Stateside and in Japan, with an ever-expanding web of lineages represented. Beyond my own concocted plans, I trust that life will continue to send me more patients with new diagnoses as soon as I get the hang of treating one set of correlated conditions.

Pricing:

  • New Patient Consultation: $145 for 90 minutes
  • Follow-Up Treatments: $115 for 75 minutes
  • Herb-Only Consultations: $55 for for 45 minutes plus the cost of herbs

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Kendra Seone and Barbara Colombo

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