About Michael Woodworth

Outside the clinic

Michael is married, with children and a dog named Luani at home. He trains in martial arts and has also instructed in various martial systems, a practice that keeps him thinking about how the body moves and how it is trained.

The practice

Michael has practiced classical Chinese medicine in Oceanside and San Diego since 2005. His work centers on neurological conditions, degenerative eye disease and complex, long-standing pain, the cases that usually need more than one approach at once.

In 2012 he began training with specialists in stroke and neurological therapies, and he has kept studying with clinicians who focus on vision, neurology and pain ever since. In eye care he combines M48 micro acupuncture with scalp acupuncture, Master Tung's points and electro-stimulation when appropriate. After stroke he combines scalp acupuncture, the Xing Nao Kai Qiao stroke system and electro-acupuncture with movement rehab in the office and exercises to take home. Master Tung's points and several scalp acupuncture systems run through his work in many other conditions as well.

The rest of the practice brings together classical herbal medicine, trained through the ICEAM curriculum, with manual and movement-based work: orthopedic acupuncture, Active Release Techniques, fascial work and functional movement assessment.

Why combine

What makes the orthopedic and pain care at Makari its own is how it was put together. Over the years Michael has trained and worked with a range of therapists, and learned the methods he saw work for their patients. Those methods are not used as separate techniques: they are built into one complete system of treatment and rehab. The aim is a plan that does not waste visits, built to get you results efficiently, with fewer visits and less follow-up. Most conditions still take a series of treatments, as the fees page explains; the point is that no visit in the plan is wasted.

Needling, hands-on therapy and movement are often delivered by different people on different days. Michael brings them into one session and one plan, using some of the most clinically effective therapies available outside of surgical intervention, because each reaches a layer the others cannot. The needle gets to deep muscles, motor points and trapped nerves that no hand can reach; the hands free tissue that has stopped gliding; movement teaches the body to keep the change.

Internal medicine follows the same idea. Most people carry a mix of patterns, so the work is to read that mix precisely, choose the formulas and the order in which to work through it, and change the medicine as you change.

How he works

Diagnosis at Makari is classical: 8-Principle, Five-Element and Six-Conformation pattern assessment. It gives the same kind of precision functional medicine panels try to quantify, read directly from the pulse, the tongue and your history, without the expensive lab gatekeeping. Herbs and acupuncture are then matched to the pattern you actually have.

Still a student

Michael continues to study the classical literature, the Shang Han Lun (傷寒論) and the Jin Gui Yao Lue (金匱要略), and the work of the teachers who keep those texts alive in clinic. His seminars, certifications and internships since 2010 are listed on training and continuing education.