NONE LEFT BEHIND

He came to the PTSD Clinic with a death sentence for his leg.  The VA docs said he would continue to lose function and gain pain from the gift of shrapnel stitched in his right thigh and groin from a landmine 30 years ago. Later he had rolled a jeep and crushed his shoulder.  For some fluke of fate he had gotten significant relief of that on a riverboat cruise in China, from a boat- bound acupuncturist who used a combination of bone-setting, needles and tuina massage to make it whole.  Hope from that is what drove him to my doorstep at the National teaching clinic.  One scalp needle got rid of the pain and restored function in minutes. His follow-up 2 days later confirmed he had gotten 75% improvement with that first salvo.  Treatment two focused on the shoulder with a needle through St 38 to Bl 57 points with similar results, followed by the 5 NADA ear points for the deeper, PTSD scars.  He, his wife, his farm (he sits on his tractor without pain) and his VA friends are thankful beneficiaries.  Happy July 4th ya'll. 

CRY ME A RIVER....

I have seen more patients cry at Cook County in the last 7 months than I have seen cry in 28 years of practice.  Take last Thursday.  I had a patient come in the week before for a first visit, and because she hadn't eaten yet (common instructions for the pain clinic) we went easy on her.  By that I  mean no heavy artillery.  No deep needling, strong stimulation, Northern style. Instead we put a few ear seeds on Shen Men, Zero, and her hip and leg points on the ear. She started crying tears of joy for the end of pain that she had been suffering since 1984.  She even went to church to share her story. But her mind got the best of her, suggesting it might in fact all be in her mind.  So she took off the seeds, and voila! Pain came back.  So she got a bobby pin and tried to press the points as she could remember them.  It helped a little.  After we put new seeds on her ear this Thursday. she was good to go.  We also showed her some Qi Gong exercises to extend her therapy, Energizer Bunny style.."Still Working!"

The second patient had a through and through gunshot wound to his right bicep, which immobilized his shoulder, and his hand, making him a candidate for surgery.  He also had tears tattooed on his cheekbones in memory of his fellow gang members who had been killed.  This was one serious dude. I told him that if I could get his shoulder to work, pain-free, it would probably restore his hand function as well. All it would take is a 5 inch needle going through the opposite leg, from Stomach 38 to Bladder 57.  He nodded. I did it. It worked.I wondered if their were tattoos for that.And would we both wear them?

Ear Ye, Ear Ye

In the early 50's several new patients of Dr. Phillip Nogier were coming into his office in France with similar burn marks on their ears. In each case they had been put there by a healer who had treated them successfully for back pain by cauterizing them along the helix of the ear. Taking note, Dr. Nogier went on to map out the rest of the ear, based on patient feed-back, in the shape of an upside-down fetus, and auricular therapy was born.  It is one of  the most powerful pain relieving tools in my acupuncture arsenal at Stroger Hospital. And many times I use ear-seeds for my first-time patients rather than needles, with equal effect.

To wit, Thursday I had a new patient present with low back and left leg pain at a 10 out of 10 level, not uncommon in my practice there.  She could barely walk, and when she sat on the chair in the treatment room she was curled up in a tortured knot of  torment.  She had not eaaten anything yet, and she was needle-phobic.  Not an uncommon presentation.  I expalined the value of having "fuel in her tank" to power up our therapy, which relies on moving her energy around her body to where she needs it.  Then I told her we were going to use the keypad of her ear to dirct the energy to the areas of pain, her back and left leg.  In the process she should feel some relief.

Reading her body language, I knew that she was more skeptical than hopeful, but also desperate.  I showed her the Chinese vacaria seeds mounted on little squares on tape that we use, and explained each point as I squeezed it in place on her left ear. Shenmen (Spiritgate) for stress; low back, and left leg points, I pinched each point hard and guided her fingers to them so that she could find them later, for at home relief.  Then I asked her to get up from the chair and start walking around the room. She gave me a look like I was crazy (much pain is memory of pain), but humored me. With each step her confidence grew more, and her pain grew less.  Until she was moving around the room relatively pain free, shaking her head that she couldn't believe it.

Over From ER....

 She came through ER over the weekend for acute back and leg pain, and admitted for tests and meds.  She was discharged on Monday, and back to ER on Thursday, without relief, asking to be guernied over to the pain clinic for acupuncture.   She was wheeled into the the clinic mid-morning, crying and white-knuckling, begging for relief.  The pain was rolling down her leg, from the hip to the toe, along the gall bladder meridian.  I went up to her right ear and placed tiny needles that barely fit between my ring-size eleven fingers into 4 points on her ear, shen men (spirit gate) hip, leg and brain stem, and watched her hyper down, like an air mattress deflating.  After a walk through of the 4 rooms manned by 4 acupuncture interns, I went back out and checked on our ER visitor.  She was dozing fitfully.  I reached down and pressed the gall bladder point in the hollow of her hip, and linked it up to the gall bladder point between his 4th and 5th toe, opening up the channel, and further reducing the pain.  About 45 minutes later transport returned, to wheel her back to ER, leaving all the needles, and most of the pain behind.

The ear is a remarkable energetic keypad to body function.  This was never more clear to me than when I visited a marine amputee at Bethesda Naval Hospital who was having trouble breathing.  When he lost his legs he lost half his kidney meridians.  In Chinese Medicine the Kidney Energy pulls down the breath.  That's demonstrated with the slap over the kidneys that kick-starts a newborn's breath. I put a needle in the kidney point on this marine's ear and which immediately reversed his hyperventilation, and visibly settles his spirit. I look forward to wider use of this remarkable therapy in ER. fy   

  

How 9 Bullets In The Trunk Can Turn You Into A Tree...

...and 4 needles in the head can restore flexibility and eliminate pain instantly.  I constantly work outside the comfort zone of belief, and history.  It happened again at Stroger the other week when I had a patient walk into the pain clinic carrying the fragments of 9 bullets in his chest.  About 23 years earlier I had seen Dr. Zhu use his style of scalp acupuncture on a wheel-chair bound victim of a "drive-by" and have him standing for the first time since he was shot (it always helps when you see what is possible first before you attempt to do it--replication, when done mindfully,  is usually much easier than creation).  When this patient comes back we will launch into the elegant and easy corrective exercises called Sotai, developed by Dr. Keizo Hashimoto, as well as continuing to use acupuncture to help him manage his pain, along with an orderly reduction of drug dependence, orchestrated by and coordinated with the M.D. side of the Pain Clinic.  I dreamed of this kind of collaboration following my first internship in Guan Zhao University of TCM Hospital in 1998, while still working as a Class 4 Felon Acupuncturist in Illinois. The gods grind exceedingly slow, and exceedingly fine.   

Stick out your tongue?

Most of our intakes at the Stroger County Hospital start with a simple request "Stick out your tongue please." After inspecting the tongue, and noting the color of the body and the coating, the shape, the sub-lingual veins, when then place 3 fingers on each wrist to determine the Chinese pulses for the Heart, Liver and Kidney on the left wrist and the Lung, Spleen and Kidney on the right wrist.  Since all of our patients are on multiple meds for pain, depression, and other issues, one might wonder how unsullied the information normally gleaned from tongue and pulse analysis are as indicators of what is happening, and not happening inside the body.  However, all else being equal, theoretically, with the addition of acupuncture and its potential to not merely reduce and in some cases eliminate pain and restore function though the mechanism of moving blood and bioenergy, these internal changes should also be reflected in the signposts of the tongue and pulses.  Were they not observed carefully by our Stroger interns (read the description of the Dali Lama's physician taking the pulse at Johns Hopkins in "Mortal Lessons" by Dr. Selzer) we would not be able to record if, when, and why those subtle yet profound changes had taken place. drfy

Every Tunnel Has A Bright Spot....

You just have to keep your eyes open.  That goes for patients and acupuncturists at Stroger County Hospital.  For practitioners, the crush of unresolved cases, back surgeries, neck surgeries, cancer, migraines, gunshot wounds, they bring not just their unmitigated pain, but its history, day after bone-crushing day.  It is a dark tunnel which encourages one to squeeze closed the eyes of the mind, and the soul, to gut through the next moment, hanging on for relief, no matter how short.

It's easy to buy into the story. I preach ruthless compassion.  Starting with self.  Cultivating the spirit of the Warrior..for Wellness.  It to build on the last post, "You can't give it if you don't have it."  And you don't have it if you are not building your strength, your prudent use of it, every day, with every conscious breath. We move into the painful space of our patients as fire-keepers.  We have the secret knowledge of seeing our work, no matter the circumstance, work more than not.  Without attachment to outcome.  We come into the room smiling, bright, hopeful.  We listen with our heart.  We cut through the story, and with a nickel's worth of needles, chase away the dragon of pain, at least for a while.  Expanding the circle of light. Which we nurture within ourselves, moment by moment.