Notes for the following treatments:

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Abbreviations used: CV/GV = Ren/Du, HP (Heart Protector) = Pericardium (P), Aggressive Energy (AE).
All points needled using tonification technique except for certain recognised protocols, such as AE drain.
Moxa cones applied before treatment except where contraindicated.
Number of cones and needle depth taken from JR Worsley's Point Reference Guide.
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Friday, May 27, 2011

Patient 29: Treatment 3 (Wood)

Patient:  Male, age 25

Element:  Wood

Number of prior treatments: Two  (see blogs of 15.5.11 & 19.5.11 for Treatments 1 & 2)

Feedback after treatment 2:  He felt that treatment was making him “feel better”, and was happy to continue coming.  The relationship between us is definitely warmer.

Treatment given:
1                    AEPs of Wood (Bl 18, 19)
2                    GB 37 Bright and Clear, VIII 5 Insect Ditch.  I chose these not because they are junction points but because I felt that to see things brightly and clearly was exactly what he needed.  They are also command points, and I wanted to stay at the command point level to complete the treatment.

At the end of treatment:  I noticed during treatment that he closed his eyes quite a lot, as if they were tired, which they must inevitably be if he is straining to see all the time.  I suggested that he should take time during the day to rest his eyes by closing them, placing his palms over them, so that no light is allowed in, resting his hands on a surface like a table to make sure that his arms don’t get tired, and sitting like that quietly for up to 10 minutes.  This is a way of helping the eyes which I learnt from the Bates method, and is extremely restful for tired, strained eyes.  I also suggested that it was important that he gave himself time during the day to sit quietly in this way, rather than trying to cover up at work how much his sight has deteriorated.  Again, the more we allow our body to heal itself, the better this is.   

He looked much more relaxed as he left, with a better colour and brighter eyes.

Time of next treatment:  In one week.    

Proposals for next treatment:  Liv 14, Gate of Hope, or Bl 38 (43). These are points I suggested last week for this treatment, but I decided instead to use the AEPs.  It is interesting why we decide on a point or points rather than others.  There is no particular reason why AEPs were a better selection today rather than Liv 14 or Bl 43, just that I preferred them.  A lot of our point selection is done because we like the thought of a particular point.  Unless there are clear indications for a specific treatment, such as H/W or entry/exit blocks, it is usually difficult to pin down exactly why we choose one point over another.  As I have often said, the choice of individual points, and the order we do them in, is nowhere near as important as ensuring that the points are on the right element!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Patient 29: Treatment 2 (Wood) (see blog of 15.5.11 for Treatment 1)

Patient:  Male, age 25

Element:  Wood

Number of prior treatments: One

Feedback after treatment 1:  His partner remarked that he “looked better”.  He himself said that he had noticed he felt generally lighter and a bit more optimistic.  I thought his face looked less flushed, and his eyes looked clearer.
  
Treatment given:

1                    SI – Bl block (SI 19 – Bl 1)
2                    Co – St block (Co 20, St 1)
I was already on the look-out for these two blocks, since it was likely that there must have been some severe blocking of energy around the eye to cause the nerve damage.
3                    CV 14  For his spirit – to relieve some of the oppression he feels.
4                    GB 41, Li 1  His spring seasonal treatment.  The best of the year for a Wood patient (even better if we could do it in the middle of the night in Wood’s horary time!)

At the end of treatment:   For the first time I felt he was beginning to relate more easily to me, and I learnt more about his plans for the future, as if he dared think forward a little more.

Time of next treatment:  In one week.    

Proposals for next treatment:  Liv 14, Gate of Hope, or Bl 38 (43) which, as I heard JR Worsley saying once, “goes to every cell in the body” (being at the level of the AEP of the HP, it is related to the body’s blood supply and distribution).  It is a marvellous point for absolutely everybody because of this, since the quality of our blood supply underlies all our efforts to restore balance.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Treatment of the three major blocks

I have just given three different treatments over the past few days, each involving one of what, in five element acupuncture, we call the three major blocks.  I am listing them in order of their importance.

Treatment 1:   Internal and External Dragons (IDs and EDs)
This was for a very disturbed patient who talked in such a confused manner at our first meeting that I could not follow the thread of anything she said.  I first started with IDS, but moved to EDs when the IDs didn’t clear the block.  This block is what we call Possession, too loaded a word, I think, and I wish I could think of a better one which removes from it something of its stigma.  It is merely one stage removed from obsession, and is a form of dissociation where the spirit finds shelter from some trauma or intolerable situation by blocking itself off.

This can only be definitely diagnosed by the practitioner looking closely into one of the patient’s eyes (you need to hold the eyelids open and tell the patient to look at one of your eyes), and finding that we cannot establish any direct contact with the patient’s spirit.  This will be shown by a pupil which remains fixed and does not flinch or move in any way, as eyes normally do when there is such close eye-to-eye contact.

This treatment is always followed by an AE drain, even though this may have already been done, even very recently.  AE can be concealed, and often is, by possession.

Treatment 2:  Husband/wife imbalance
All the pulses of the right side are stronger in quality than those on the left, most obviously revealed by depletion in the Ht/SI pulse, indicating a dangerous weakening of the energy of the Supreme Controller, the Heart.

Treatment 3:  Aggressive Energy
This was in a patient who returned for treatment after 2 years and after having gone through a very difficult year.  I found AE on the AEPs of Lu, HP and Ht, and it remained on the needle in the Ht AEP (Bl 15) on the left for much longer than on the other needles (1½ hours), indicating a dangerous attack upon the Heart.

All three treatments were rounded off by command points, of course.

I am always awed by what amazingly simple means (a few needles placed in a few points) such powerful effects can be achieved.  At the end of these treatments, all three patients seemed as though reborn, not too powerful a description for the lifting of the weight bearing down upon their spirits.

(Details of the procedures and points to be used for all these three blocks are given in my Handbook of Five Element Practice)

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Patient 29: Treatment (Wood)

Patient:  Male, age 48

Element:  Wood

Number of years coming for treatment:  New patient – treatment 1

Number of prior treatments: None

Reason for treatment:  Losing sight in right eye as a result of optical neuritis for the past 4 years.  Only possible Western medical treatment is high doses of steroids, which are temporarily slightly effective in holding back the nerve damage, but are becomingly increasingly less effective.  Because of the dangerous side-effects he has to keep on reducing the dose, and has to wait for a time before re-starting.  Has been told that the condition is irreversible, and is very worried because the left eye is now starting to be affected.  The steroid use has led to a great increase in weight which he cannot lose despite strenuous efforts.
  
Treatment given:

1                    No AE.  I always find it interesting that there can be no AE, as here, when there is every reason to think that the officials might be under stress, and a lot of AE in patients who come with very mild symptoms.  There is no way of telling whether AE is there just from the pulses or from the severity of imbalance.  Pulses can appear to be very erratic and yet there is no AE.
2                    CV/GV (Ren Mai/Du Mai) block:  CV 1, CV 24, GV1, GV 28.  To be expected, particularly after the attack on the whole body/spirit caused by the high doses of steroids.  His pulses were completely empty.  Normally I would wait a few treatments to see if treatment on the patient’s element will bring up the energy, but in this acute case, with almost daily deterioration, I decided not to wait.  There was an immediate change after CV 1, his colour changed, he looked less desperate, and had a generally slightly healthier look, a difficult but subtle change to observe.
3                    GB 40, Liv 3
4                    TH 22, GB 1 (TH-GB block) – very likely to be there because of the build-up of stress around the eyes.
5                    Liv 14 – Lu 1 (Li-Lu block)
6                    Ki 24 (Spirit Burial Ground).  I felt that the great stress placed by his condition upon his spirit required this.
7                    Repeat of GB 40, Liv 3 (left side only) to complete the treatment at the command point level.

This represents a heavier first treatment than I would normally give, but it was warranted by the severity of the condition and the patient's state of mind.

At the end of treatment:   Much improved colour.  Where he had been a very flushed red, often an imbalance in Wood people, as a result of the weakness of Wood (the mother) affecting the child (Fire), he now had a markedly less flushed colour, with a slightly muddy green showing itself more clearly.  The smell had changed to a slightly healthier smell.  Altogether, he looked very different from how he had been before treatment.  He held himself more upright, walked with more confidence, and looked more optimistic.

Time of next treatment:  In 5 days.   He will have to come for frequent treatments, at no longer than weekly intervals for at least 6-8 treatments, probably longer. 

Proposals for next treatment:   Watch for other Entry/Exit blocks, particularly around the eyes (Co-St, and/or SI-Bl).  Something for his spirit, such as CV 8, finishing with spring seasonal treatment (GB 41, Liv 1).  It is a little late for the full effect of the onset of spring in the Wood element in nature to feed his Wood element, but there is still enough of that fresh Wood energy out there to draw upon.  A seasonal treatment is always the best treatment of the year, so I am squeezing it in to help him.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Patient 28: Treatment (Earth)

Patient:  Female, age 34

Element:  Earth

Number of prior treatments: One

Reason for treatment:   Three miscarriages, at between 3 and 12 weeks, in the past two years.

Treatment given:

1                    CV/GV (Ren Mai/Du Mai) block:  CV 1, CV 24, GV1, GV 28.   To be expected after the trauma of the birth of her second child two years ago.  Very protracted labour, very little help from nursing staff in the labour ward because they were under severe pressure, finally required forceps delivery, with resultant need for stitches which took some time to heal.  Birth traumas very often lead to a CV/GV block, even if there has been no surgery. A CV/GV block is also often the cause of infertility, particularly if there has been a previous Caesarian operation (literally a cut across the CV meridian), or any kind of sexual trauma.  In this patient’s case the CV/GV block meant that all her officials, including of course both CV and GV, have sufficient energy to allow an egg to fertilize but insufficient energy to keep the baby in the womb.  In cases of infertility, the officials have insufficient energy for fertilization in the first place.
2                    St 42, Sp 3

At the end of treatment:   She could feel an immediate change after the CV/GV block.  “I feel lighter”.  Better colour, and happier as she left.   

Time of next treatment:  One week.      

Proposals for next treatment:    Continue working on Earth.  She is starting to re-evaluate her life, particularly her relationship with her mother, and is beginning to understand that treatment could also help her deal with quite traumatic family problems in her childhood.  Since she has always been able to conceive very quickly, I am very optimistic that her next pregnancy will proceed smoothly.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

The usefulness of the Akabane test

The test is named after a Japanese acupuncturist who discovered that correcting an imbalance in energy between the left and right sides of the body before you start to treat a patient helps the officials return to balance more easily.  Basically, you compare the strength of energy along each meridian on the two sides of the body, and if you find any discrepancy between the two, you correct it by transferring energy from the side of the meridian which is relatively stronger to feed its weaker side.  I have described the technique for doing this in my Handbook of Five Element Practice (pages 62-63). 

If there is an unequal distribution of energy of this kind, it is as if the official concerned is limping to one side rather than walking straight.  Akabane devised a remarkably simple method of correcting this imbalance.  Doing this helps ensure that any balancing of energy through subsequent treatment is not weakened by a pre-existing tendency for a meridian to favour one side or another.

Left-right imbalances of the kind Akabane discovered can be the cause of one-sided symptoms, such as neuralgia on one side of the face, or joint pains on one side of the leg. Sometimes patients say that they feel lopsided when they walk, as if one side is weaker than the other, another sign of this imbalance.  Symptoms such as these may persist, despite good treatment, if the officials concerned are struggling internally to send balanced energy down both sides of the body.  It is therefore always a good idea to carry out the Akabane test and correct any imbalances found as a matter of course as part of our initial physical diagnosis. 

Often several meridians can be found to be unbalanced, but I have found that correcting the one that is most out of balance can in many cases restore balance to any other imbalances that you find.