Colds and flu with acupuncture & chinese herbs
THIS ARTICLE SHOULD BE READ IN LIGHT OF THE INFO IN MY RECENT POST RE CONDITIONS I”M NOT ALLOWED TO CLAIM THAT I CAN TREAT. SO PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT I CANNOT CLAIM TO TREAT INFECTIOUS DISEASES !!!!!
I’ve seen many people over the last few weeks with one respiratory infection or another. To my horror I started going down with severe shivers and throat swelling the other evening. I saw an acupuncturist; she gave me treatment the same evening as I lay moaning at death’s door (I don’t do ‘illness’ very well, though I have to say I felt dreadful with the headache from hell and severe chills and fever alternately). She treated me again the next morning and by the middle of the day I was much better. I’ve treated people WHO COINCIDENTALLY ALSO HAD (SEE HEADING) flu after they’ve had it for days or weeks; it’s usually much harder than this. Moral: catch it as early as possible & you have a good chance of success. This is all in the ‘Shang Han Lun’ treatise on cold damage, a manuscript dating from around 2000 years ago charting the development of ‘externally contracted’ illness as it goes through different levels of the body’s immune response depending on the areas of your strengths or weaknesses. ALTHOUGH OF COURSE ZHANG ZHONG JING , THE AUTHOR, DIDN”T CLAIM TO BE ABLE TO TREAT THEM. HE LEFT THAT TO THE MEDICS. (OH HANG ON ….. HE WAS ‘THE MEDICS’ . A large part of my training as a microbiologist was immunology, but the sophistication of theory and medical observation in this ancient text is astonishing.
Myofascial trigger points, the poor relation of acupuncture
These muscular problems cause so much pain – small points of structural shortening in muscle as a consequence of strain – sudden or repetitive (see my main article on the physic website, physic.co.uk). The technique of needling them was developed by western medicine but apart from a few gps and pain consultants who practice these needling techniques, many people get told they’ve pulled a muscle & have to live with the pain. And in the world of classical acupuncture trigger point needling is often derided as too simplistic. I recently got one myself in shoulder girdle musculature (teres major) and was astonished at the level of debilitating ache. Now I have absolute sympathy with all the people I treat with similar problems.