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Healing With Needles Acupuncture makes UCSD training room unique By Travis Hill, Senior Staff Writer, The UCSD Guardian Ross Mecham was lying face down, motionless on the training room table-with about 10 needles sticking out of the back of his leg. No, the UCSD water polo superstar was not being punished for a sarcastic comment, or even a mistake during the teammate s last game. In fact, Mecham was being treated for a knee injury—he was receiving acupuncture therapy. It is very possible that UCSD is the only school in the nation that is combining modern sports medicine with traditional Chinese medicine. “I don’t know of any other schools (in the country) that are doing this,” said Matt Callison, UCSD’s acupuncture specialist. “None whatsoever.” Callison is the man behind the needles. His unique background has allowed him to be on the cutting edge of athletic medicine. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Sports Medicine from San Diego State University and a Master’s Degree in Traditional Oriental Medicine from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in Mission Valley. He has spent the last nine years creating his craft: A combination of kinesiology, sports medicine and Chinese medicine. His work in acupuncture has been quite successful thus for a variety of reasons he has given seminars on his work internationally and has worked on professional athletes, including members of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings. Recently, he started working with the San Diego Chargers as well. Callison is definitely qualified. The only question in the training room before the 1999-2000 UCSD season began was whether or not Triton athletes would be open to receive such procedures. Thus far, many have been. Mecham was not at all opposed to the treatment: "Being the adventurous spirit that I am, I said sure, why not?" According to Klaiber, Director of the facility, and Callison, around 30 Triton athletes have begun acupuncture treatment. There has been only one athlete who was recommended to try the acupuncture and refused. Nonetheless. 30 is a good number to start with. Now, the question of results comes into play. Indeed, the needles create a striking scene, but it is generally a fact that athletes will try anything if it's going to help them get back into the game. Mecham says the treatment has given him mixed results, but he has no plans to discontinue the curious therapy. "It's interesting," Mecham said. "It's different. It's weird. It's new. I guess it's old, actually. But it hasn't adversely affected me at all, so I'll try to get something good out of it." Callison reported that every one of the athletes he has treated in the training room has seen some kind of improvement. Klaiber reported one case where a patient worked for three days with the traditional methods of treating a sore, swollen knee. Trainers gave the patient ice, did stretching exercises and even used the electronic devices on the knee and saw slow progress. The patient then underwent one acupuncture session, and was able to stretch the knee 30 more degrees - a dramatic improvement. Klaiber herself has even started to receive the acupuncture treatment on her back. "The first time we did it, it helped tremendously," Klaiber said. The technical aspect of acupuncture is not extremely difficult to understand. "Take, for instance, an ankle sprain," Callison said. "Say the ankle is swollen. What we will do is needle the muscles that are around the ankle that activate and hold it. You don't want to go into the ankle itself, because it would be painful. But you can needle points that are away from the ankle that will directly affect it." That brings up another question: Does it hurt when Callison "needles" you? There is no blood when the extremely thin needles break the skin, and they are applied by Callison and Pacific College interns in a very precise manner, placed directly into the problem area. "It's like a little pinprick and it's over," Mecham said. "Once the needle breaks the skin, it doesn't hurt at all."
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