Divergents SDS and dermatology

[Pamela Gregg Flax]

Hello,

This is my first post! I’m so grateful to be here amidst colleagues. I would appreciate conversation about working with the divergent channels for dermatological problems. I am diagnosing which channels are involved based on the cutaneous zones and then choosing the related Divergent zonal pair. But how do I think about the order when so many channels are involved?

The particular case is with a female patient in her 20s who has a terrible case of eczema resulting from stress and anxiety, from which she has suffered all her life but which has been particularly bad during COVID. Eczema blossoms dark pink to red and in the beginning cracked and oozed in the hands and itched intensely; HT, PC (occ. LR too), LU, are the worst, but there are splotches or simply itching along LI, ST, GB and UB cutaneous channels. Armpits, wrists and hands were the worst, followed by feet, forehead near the hairline, inner arms and legs, hips and the spinal scar from scoliosis surgery. She was effectively disabled due to the severe cracking on the hands and unable to sleep due to the itching. She often cannot have clothing on her skin because it stimulates the itching. Her body is petite and slight, she is pale, her tongue is deeply fissured and reddish or pink-red, her pulses are overall fine with the B/L cun positions feeling tight and the LR/KI feeling weak. Once we started calming her shen and nourishing blood, she fared better but was not free of the condition–still reddish and very itchy. Through our work together, she learned how connected her emotions were to the eczema, and she made a huge leap in healing when she took herself off social media. To drive the point home, she witnessed the emotions-skin connection in “real time” when she had a therapy session that was particularly emotional and watched her normal skin have a full blown outbreak by the end of the session. Location? The splotches began on around distal HT points of the wrists and then spread fully to the PC and then LU and forehead-hairline.

I have just started venturing into the divergents for dermatology.

When so many channels are involved, how do I know which channels to begin with? I thought that maybe I should release the deepest zonal pairs first, so I did PC/LR last week. The LR channel improved but she had had the blossoming on the wrists and hands in the therapy session described above. In the next session I tonified blood before doing LU/SP because the thumb area was bothering her the most of the three arm yin channels. Afterwards I wondered if I should have released the HT/KI instead because the eczema begins on the HT channel and that seems to be the source. Our next session happens to be on her birthday next week, and I’m thinking about releasing HT/KI.

I would appreciate any thoughts about the following:
–order (how to treat and progress through the effected zones)
–use of SI-18, CV 3, ST-8 and GB 22 when there is already so much spreading
–frequency of treatments and course of treatments (is it like regular divergents?)
–which essential oils might be relevant (same as the regular divergents? Use both the essential oil, e.g., an oil for HT and an oil for Kidney?)
–other

Many thanks!
Pamela in Santa Fe

[Antoine Mulpas]

Hello Pamela,

I would work simply using the Divergent DSD in her case. If she was under a very stressful period, mediumship had been depleted quite strongly. I would simply try to figure out where she is in the Divergent sequence and work to tonify the mediumship working backward towards BL/KI Divergent. She may not have the ressources to expel the pathogen, as the zonal treatment may be too complicated as there is eczema in a lot of zone. But I’m just beginning with the Divergent so wait for another answers 🙂
If you think the cause is really related to emotional causes, as the eruption during the therapy session, you may bleed the Luo. In the SI Luo you have skin eruptions in the symptoms, but you may have to work with some others.
Hope that help,
Let us know how it goes with this patient,
Cheers,
Antoine

[Pamela Gregg Flax]

Thanks for looking at it with a slightly different angle, Antoine. I have used the LR Divergent DSD to build blood for her, but I could probably to do more. Ann mentions using cutaneous divergents with minimal points if the person is deficient, but I will think more about building mediumship. And I will also think more about the Luo too. We’ve done some Luo treatments, but it didn’t seem to make enough of a difference. Maybe in combination with building the mediumship. I’ll keep you posted. Many thanks, Pamela

[Armin]

Hi Pamela,

I have never done a divergent zonal treatment, but my understanding based on my notes is that the best time for this approach is when you have more of an acute situation or perhaps an acute flare up of a chronic condition. I can see how that works with the musculoskeletal conditions when let’s say a chronic low back bladder zone pain jumps to small intestine zonal pair. But I would not know how it works with skin condition that’s all over and chronic.

I definitely agree that this is more of chronic situation which would require a DSD approach. I would say your liver divergent is pretty right on. I would also recommend adding the GB, its yang pair to help with moving out the pathogen while building the mediumship. And, also because in Ann’s book, skin conditions are listed for Gb divergent.

In general, chronic skin conditions have a very Shao yang feel to them, though, of course, this can be said about many chronic conditions. This is especially so when areas such as armpits, and groins are involved. In this case, there is wrists, inside of legs and arms too, so in a way shao yang/jue yin situation so another reason to consider the Liv/Gb divergent. It would be good to use the Gb44 to allow a bit of an exit point for the pathogen.

Another strategy you may consider is a shao yang sinew treatment. Ann talked about this once and I had a chance to use it on a client with a very chronic, annoying eczema on palms/soles. Treatments were helping but not as much as I would have liked. I did one session of this sinew treatment with all the prep work (she was very deficient) and only arm and leg shao yang on right/left respectively and then everything started to shift for the better. Now she maintains it with a proper diet.

Hope this helps.
Armin

[Pamela Gregg Flax]

Thank you, Armin.

I didn’t see much of a change in her path of outbreak after I did the sinew cutaneous, but I didn’t 1) do the HT channel from which everything emerged then jumped zones to Jue Yin and Tai Yin; 2) and didn’t gua sha or cup the cutaneous (only the PC 1 area and Gb 26 to Cv 2). Maybe it would have been different. This is an acute flare of a chronic condition, that emerges for her in times of stress, and she has had rolling stress with this year of unemployment and isolation. This last session, I did DSD Lr/GB divergent, with GB 44 for anything that wanted to move out. I haven’t done a combo like that before with the divergents (consolidating some points and clearing others), so I’m looking forward to seeing how she does. Thanks for your input.

[Mònica Martín]

Hi Pamela,

I do agree with Antoine and Armin in that Divergents may be appropriate at this stage for this patient to help provide the adequate amount of mediumship for emotions to be “released”/expressed at some point (that is probably why she had a particularly intense outbreak after an emotional session may there haven’t been enough “mediumship”).

What other symptoms is your client displaying? Has she got any sinus problems? It could well be that the Lungs are not dispersing Wei Qi to the surface. Blockage of sinus can be a major cause of chronic skin problems causing Wei Qi stasis in the skin. Itchiness and redness correlates to Wind-Heat, occasional oozing pointing to Taiyin at some point. If the problem is a long-lived one, Blood might have been exhausted and it is Jinye supporting Blood, hence the redness. A 3rd confluence treatment might be appropriate due to the chronicity of the problem. That could be easily ascertained through the pulses.

Unless the eczema was clearly located in one level, namely Taiyang or Yangming, I would not consider location to be meaningful at this stage. The fact of it being so spread out to me suggests that location is not as relevant possibly as the systemic mechanism causing the outbreaks. It would be interesting to find out what sort of emotions trigger outbreaks. There might be some Yangming issue with being “exposed” as you mention that the condition improved when she “took off social media” (being at Yangming where we expose ourselves by “facing” screens and social media, the virtual world outside). In any case, as already pointed above, pulse might be an important factor to take into account, especially width.

The Heart is usually implicated in skin issues that have an emotional component. The Luo terrain offers the possibility to explore the emotional side of it may you consider it necessary and release some of the pressure. Luo and Divergent treatments can be easily combined in one session.

Still, all Divergent channels go pass through the chest, so in terms of emotions, they connect to the unconscious side of the emotional realm (Wei level, ANS, reactivity) and the Yuan level, (the emotions buried deep in the unconscious mind), so tapping into the Divergents can help unleash some of the pressure in that respect, particularly if you guasha prior to treating with needles (guasha helps to “release” the emotional pressure of vital experience held in the Blood up to the surface).

Keep us updated 🙂

Monica

[Pamela Gregg Flax]

Hi Monica,

Thank you for this very helpful email. She has mild to moderate intermittent sinus issues aggravated by allergies to external pollens. I am seeing her today, and will ask more about what emotions are triggered. There has been a multitude – isolation and loneliness, fear of not surviving once the unemployment funds expire, and possibility not feeling worthy. If my memory serves, many of her allergies including the skin started when she was a baby.

I will pay special attention to the pulses and interaction in the context that you have brought up here and report back with more details.

Many thanks,
Pamela

[Author]

Posts