A Note From The Day – by Ann Cecil-Sterman

A rare departure from the complement channels for me today.

A pop singer came in today announcing that she was about to go on antibiotics for swollen lymph nodes in the neck. She had to leave early to fly and there wasn’t much time. Having been called to rescue her gut many times over the years following courses of antibiotics, I was very eager to get the lymph nodes cleared. The lung pulse was very slippery and the vector between Spleen and Lung was absent. The Kidney Yang pulse (right chi) was entirely missing. The left wrist was unremarkable. I asked about blocked sinuses and she agreed she’d had a tough time with them recently.

The Classical texts say that the sinuses are the origin of countless diseases. This is because if they are clogged they prevent clearance of pathogenic factors through the sensory orifices, including the throat. The first task was to restore Kidney Yang with moxa at KI-3. Then my favorite, KI-2 and SP-8—the third trajectory of the Kidney Primary Channel (both moxaed) to ascend the Spleen to the Lungs. Then three Windows to the Sky points: ST-9, LI-18 and SI-16. And then ST-45 and BL-67 to activate the sinews to let it all drain.

When I took the needles out, she said that the side of her nose suddenly hurt. Ah ha! The Stomach Sinew Channel activated to clear the sinuses. I inserted a needle very superficially at the side of the nose where it was sore, then turned and pulled. Her face twitched and twisted, she squinted long and hard and finally she sneezed and then sneezed again. The mucus cleared from her sinuses, copious amounts of it, making room for the lymph node congestion to come up, driven there by the Windows to the Sky points. She left with clear lymph nodes and the whole thing took 15 minutes.

Acupuncture rocks, very much.