Shoulder pain

[Armin]

Hi all,

I have a patient with shoulder pain except that it’s not with any movement. The pain is only at night when she sleeps on it.
Is this considered Jueyin? Yangming?

Thanks

[Elizabeth Ross]

Hi Armin!

She sleeps on the shoulder that pains her, on her side? That seems like it would be yangming – it’s bearing her weight, and perhaps also jueyin like you’re thinking. Unless her arm is stuck in some specific position that you could connect to another motion?

[Amy Matthews]

When you test movement, do you test movement with resistance? Or just with the weight of her own arm?

[Armin]

Elizabeth, yes it’s when she’s sleeping on that side that she feels the pain. I see what you mean about the weight bearing and that’s sort of what I was thinking but I thought it would only be when the arm is actually carrying something. I suppose in this case, the shoulder joint is carrying the weight of the body. And she is feeling it pretty much on the Yangming channel.

Amy, I didn’t test any movements. I just inquired about when she feels the pain and what movement is the worst. But no active resistance test on my part.

[Amy Matthews]

Armin, I can only speak from personal experience, since I don’t work with people and can’t get my animal pattents to do the kind of precise movements on request! But I find that I will compensate for pain and avoid movement without realizing it. My husband developed shoulder pain “after sleeping” (not quite the same as just during sleep) and denied any other disfunction for quite a while, but did finally confess that he had pain during certain movements. So, just a thought that asking her to show you her range of motion and how well she is able to move the joint in different ways might elucidate some new perception. Would love to hear how she does, no matter what you do!

Amy

[Armin]

Hi Amy,

Now I understand what you mean. Initially I thought you were talking about active resistance test on certain movements. As far as asking her to do movements in front of me, I did do that after she said no other movements where bugging her, but nothing was conclusive. Everything seemed a little bit uncomfortable equally other than weight on it at night.

I went with Jue Yin and Yang Ming as far as movement related channels. Added arm Tai yang and Tai yin for where she actually feels the pain. So basically covered most of it 🙂 She felt better all around, but still some pain at night, albeit better than before. This is someone with years and years of cervical vertebral, neck and shoulder issues. It will take a few sessions. But the Chiro and physio couldn’t do much in over 20 sessions what acupuncture did in just one session. So that’s pretty good to me!

Armin

[Elizabeth Ross]

Nice work, Armin!

[Ann Cecil-Sterman]

So great, Armin. If there’s pain at night, be sure to nourish blood or yin or both according to the pulses because yin symptoms at yin times requires that!

[Armin]

Thank you Ann!

I guess your reply leads to a follow up question: In the context of the sinew channel treatments, wouldn’t tonifying the Kidney yang and stomach fluids prior to the treatment also address the blood/yin deficiency? Or, are you suggesting something more directly for that given that the pain is at night?

Armin

[Ann Cecil-Sterman]

That’s a great question, Armin. The intention is the key. When you needle to prepare for a sinew treatment, your focus is on the movement of the fluid component of Ying Qi generating Wei Qi and then the distribution of wei qi. So you’d need to do more treatment to ensure blood can move and that it can be replenished during sleep. I hope you’re well! A

[Armin]

Thank you Ann.

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