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I would do DSD because that is precisely what we want to do, to bring pathogens into latency while the body gathers enough mediumship to mount a future attempt to expel the pathogen. Trusting the body’s ability to decide when it is ready to do so is safer than performing an SDS treatment without reassurance that the resources are available.
Best, 🙂
MonicaHi Antoine,
It all sounds like you’ve helped her a lot! The signs you describe are typical of someone taking antibiotics which are Cold in nature (tiredness, diarrhoea, loss of apetite) so this would exacerbate any Yang deficiency precondition that she may have had prior to being infected (which she might have if she’d become vegetarian especially increasing consumption of raw fruit and vegetables). With the signs and symptoms you describe I would have probably gone for the 6th confluence, particularly Large Intestine, since Yang is the resource that seems more compromised in her case at this particular stage.
Covid semms to target the confluence that corresponds to the resource more compromised in the patient prior to being infected, yet it can rapidly shift (confluence-wise within a Divergent perspective) and can wreak havoc in a matter of days and even hours. Knowing the patient’s preconditions will surely help a lot to understand the symptoms manifesting in her case. This will give you precious information to fine-tune your treatment to address the condition in a situation that can dranmatically change in no time.
It would be very interesting to know how your patient evolves.
Monica
Hi Sue,
Nice to read you here 🙂
The word “control” seems quite prominent in this patient’s life, particularly through male significant others. Sometimes when the person is feeling that is “getting rid” of this controlling figures, what really happens is that the controlling role is shifted to another aspect in life, so she becomes controlled by her “empowering” job. When I say “control” I mean that life is no longer in your hands but something/body else dictates how you should live your life be it your father, a partner or even a job. So maybe her job was a subsitute for the controlling figures in her life. Once she becomes “trapped” RA may become an expression of this internal “howl” claiming for freedom.
Issues of control and rigidity relate to the Metal element. Metal insults Fire. The Fire element is expressed in the Heart and the Shen, the governor of one’s own life, the ability to express and feel that one is in control, in charge. Maybe the fact that she feels controlled is an external expression of the weakness of her own Fire element. The controlling figures become the reflection of this weakness in her Fire expression. Now it is her body “controlling” her life through the pain (a remarkable feature of RA patients).
The fact that she relates the painful experience of being “controled” in her life with her physical pain and that she is conscious of still “holding on to it”, suggests that there is grief and that she hasn’t let go of that pain. A Lung Luo could help release some of that grief. Lieque 列缺 Lu7 “Broken Sequence”can help release the attachment to the past. RA started in the hands and this an area transversed by the entirety of this Luo channel, an expression of the hands as that by which we hold on to things.
The Large Intestine, as the paired organ of the Lung through the transversal Luo connection might have been the receptacle of that pathogenic emotion in the form of Heat causing inflammation (colitis). Other problems in her history such as gall bladder stones also point to unexpressed emotions and accumulation of Heat which can be addressed through the Luo lenses maybe at some point.
You seem to have been doing very well with your patient so far. I hope that considering the Luo perspective can help to expand the treatment options for her.
Keep us updated,
Monica
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
Hi Antoine,
Yeees!!! I’m glad for you and your patient. It’s often the case that when you help the person to unblock a channel, energy gets its free flow back inside and outside (outside as a reflection / projection / extension of what happens within), life unfolds and “funny things” happen. Life is a mystery, absolutely…and that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? Us being such espectators of it all is one of the things that make our job so incredibly rewarding.
Best,
Monica
Hi Antoine,
I personally would not treat them all but rather choose one of them to fine-tune or underline whatever the intention of the treatment may be using the technique that best serves that purpose.
Best wishes 🙂
Monica
Hi Antoine,
These would be some of my favourites that can be used in 3 different contexts (Luo, Divergent or 8X).
GB37 光明 guāng míng, Illuminating Brightness, can help in decision-making when a choice is at stake and where anger or frustration may be involved. Excess Wood may be the image of wood on fire generating smoke that blurs the visual field. As a Luo point it can help dispel the anger that generates smoke in order to see the options more clearly.
GB1 瞳子髎 tóng zi liáo, Hole in the Bone of the Virgin Child, refers to the capacity to see with a child’s eyes, innocence, forgetting about previous experiences in order to experience the world in a different way, inviting to contemplate different options free from the burden of conditioning.
GB13 本神 běn shén, Root of the Shen, helps to settle fright or undecisiveness that may disturb the Shen. When the Shen is calm is like reflecting one’s image in calm water. In that reflection the next step for one to take may become cristal-clear.
Monica
Hi Antoine,
You could consider Yin Weimai or the second trajectory of Chongmai to help the patient connect with her gut feeling. To connect to her inner truth if the issue is somehow vocational (which sounds like it might be so). It could be that she ends up deciding to find a job that helps her fulfill her purpose in life, and that could even lead her to disregard both options and ultimately consider a job re-orientation. If the choice was more or less equally swinging between two options addressing the Gall Bladder might help her to envision the best choice for her, so she could connect to the courage to make a decision to move either in one direction or the other.
I hope this can help with your patient,
Monica
Hi Elizabeth,
What an interesting case! It sound like you’re doing a great job.I am sorry I happen to read it months later. Just wondering if you found the answer to your question yourself. I don’t have any details about this case and I am wondering if you have gone anyway beyond the sinews scenario treatment-wise. Did she present any Daimai symptoms apart from the paralysis being a major Daimai symptom here? Have you explored the avenues of Daimai treatment for the problems of incontinence/retention? Just curious…
Keep us posted! 🙂
Anna,
If you don’t see much improvement you could also consider a Gall Bladder Divergent channel treatment as the ears are the sensory orifice related to this channel. Use confluent and meeting points, focusing your intention into GB1 as an upper confluent point that releases the upper portal, and the ear more specifically. Then add TH16 Tianyou, Window of Heaven, to release the pressure (Heaven = head). If there is bruxism associated or you observe tension in the masseter muscles (which you did when you performed a SC treatment), then add St5 Daying (Great Welcome) that connects to the sensory orifices and also teeth and gum (as areas of latency). This could be an important point to treat as there seems to be a correlation between the tooth extraction and the onset of tinnitus. Latency might have moved and it’s affecting a sensory orifice. Daying is an important point when unresolved issues are dumped into thyroid glands. In order to avoid this (to move into Yangming St9) it is held in the masseter area. As pressure builds up in the ear region and tinnitus ensues. If you use this point you can needle superficial, then deep and then turn the needle slightly and pull out. The patient will refer a sensation of release in the area and an instant decrease of the tinnitus.
Cupping St12 Bing Feng (Grasping the Wind) will also help release Wind if you find signs of it in the pulse (a rough quality).
I treated a patient a few weeks with recurrent bouts of tinnitus every now and then and the tinnitus subsided with one treatment. This particular patient has problems expressing anger so his GB gets easily blocked.
If you’re concerned about the TH pulse you could add GB36 Waiqiu (External Hill) for both clearing Fire toxins (that may have been released after the tooth extraction itself) and by virtue of its being a Xi-cleft point to clear stagnation in the upper orifice, ear, to which GB is connected.
Keep us posted 🙂
Hi Antoine,
What makes you think about LI Luo? Are there any other accompanying symptoms to support the use of LI Luo? What are the pulses like?
Sores in the mouth mucous membrane can be a sign of Yangming Heat/Fire. If they’re recurrent it means there’s chronicity. The body may be using Jin/Thin Fluids to support latency and in doing so the mucous covering the whole GI tract might be less supple with Fluids and hydration and so it would be left more vulnerable to the effect of certain foods (of hot nature, most likely) acting as irritants. The body requiring these Fluids to support an immune response may also cause a deficiency of Fluids and a scenario of excess Heat/Fire that can fuel the development of cranker sores. A Stomach Divergent channel might address this problem if it’s happening on a background of Jin/Thin Fluids deficiency. Check for the width of the right guan position. If thin, this could be indicative of the need to build mediumship (Yin) at this confluence.
If sores where in the tongue, it would be indicative of a Ht Luo problem. If it was related to teething, then it might be more indicative of a LI Luo issue. If there are signs of a degenerating process (maybe due to cancer).
You could also treat other channels depending on the rest of the symptoms. It all depends on what the main problem is and how you will unfold the layers where the disease lies for that particular patient. The patient may see the symptoms disappear as a consequence of the treatment without you having addressed cranker sores specifically.
Best wishes,
Mónica
Hola Anna,
I agree with Antoine. The trajectory of LI Luo diverts from the neck both to the jaw and to the ear. A simple Luo treatment might clear the channel as well as the “hyperactive” mental state of the patient. At an emotional level the LI Luo is related to teething and the assimilation that goes with it. When the person is absorbing too much information through the senses to the point that it becomes too much to be assimilated, the LI Luo may reach a state of fullness and create a tension in the jaw as well as tinnitus as a way for the body to say “stoooop feeding me information”. Often patients that present conflicts in this channel also suffer from bruxism.
Let us know how it goes with your patient,
Una abraçada,
MonicaHola Anna,
It sounds like a very interesting case and that you’re doing very well. Chongmai appears as prominent channel and you actually worked with the first and second trajectories already. Also Yin Weimai can help to move on in this scenario which also may pave the way for a deeper work with the first ancestry.
The 2nd trajectory of Chongmai features the Kd shu points on the chest. When needling this channel if you step back and look at your patient you will see that it very much resembles a cage. Very often, people who have issues in this trajectory have a history of trauma pressing deep in the chest more or less literally, and often the person reports a sensation of being “imprisoned” in a cage (the rib cage) by a feeling that could be hatred, sadness… “imprisonment” stems from the believe that there’s an issue that have not been and will never be solved. Sometimes the person doesn’t even have know “consciously” why he feels as he does. This is the source of an underlying frustration (blocking of creative energy –Lv Qi stagnation) that overtime leads to depression (Lv Qi xu). Your patient seems to have gone into shock from seeing her mum on the floor bleeding, and at that time she feared that she might lose her (and the support she represented for her) and she “blamed” her dad for that. The recent death of her mum could have awakened the memory of those feelings in the past and increase the stagnation that was already present.
It is interesting to see that patients experiencing trauma affecting this layer often report difficulty in talking about it. That often creates a great deal of stagnation in the throat which can affect the thyroid, a problem for which your patient needed surgery. Tiāntū 天突, Ren22, Celestial chimney, “opening up the chimney” (the sternum) to let the “smoke” of what is being burnt (Shen – Ht – Fire element) reach the Heaven (head) so it can travel through the throat to reach the root of the tongue via Liánquán 廉泉, Ren23 Ridge at the Spring, so emotions can be freely expressed through the tongue, and also to cause a cathartic release through the tears in the eyes, Chēngqì 称泣, St1, Container of the tears (difficulty in crying that your patient reports). This trajectory features a Luo pt, Nèiguān 内关, Pc6, the Inner Gate, that releases the chest by “opening the cage” and freeing the emotions trapped inside. Kidney shu points can be needled either according to the Element they represent, or by considering their single point energetics or just by palpating and locating the most tender points. You can correlate both findings and often you will find that the point you would choose happens to be the most tender point/s. In any case, the patient ended up expressing all those feelings to you, so you must have needled the right point!
Gōngsūn 公孙 Sp4 already infers the generational theme that often underlies many of our most deeper conflicts generally dating back to the mother and father figures. Unblocking the 2nd trajectory of Chongmai may help you address deeper fundamental Renmai issues related to the absence of bonding (specially to the mother figure) and the sense of sadness that can result of it. Lu7 opens Renmai but it is also the Luo point of the Lung channel that can beautifully address these problems. Yet, for this patient the absence of bonding was rooted in the first cycle of 7-8 and so a Renmai treatment is particularly indicated specially if pulses also point to it (not only Yin Qiaomai, but Renmai also may yield deep moving pulses that cannot be felt when pressed down).
Lumbar pain could be related to fear/anger blocking the natural expression of the Dumai energies, the father figure, whose relationship and the conflict inherent with him seems to be unresolved as Armin was pointing out. Hence Dumai energies and that which they represent (the father) seem to be blocked, and that might be the trigger for the lumbar pain. Have you considered the third trajectory of Chongmai? Yang energy stems from Dumai. If a Chongmai issue blocks the ascending distribution of Yang through Dumai, lumbar pain may result as well as other functions related to keeping things in place. If the Sea of Yang is blocked there may be issues related to energy (tiredness) and Spleen and Kidney Yang deficiency (prolapses, GI issues…). Every time she meets her dad she feels like “he takes all her energy” because that’s when she confronts her main conflict with him (anger, frustration => stagnation => blockage). Possibly her lumbar pain worsens too, and you can treat very rebel lumbar pain issues with this channel. This trajectory features BL17 which treats stagnation of Qi and Blood and unblocks the diaphragm. Resistance to forgive her father suggests that there might be some rigidity in the patient that this channel could help to reduce by addressing the stagnation in the Liver due to Cold or Liver Blood deficiency that may be causing her migraines and lumbar pain. Chángqiáng, 长强 Du1, Long resistance would be an important point to address this rigidity. Gōngsūn 公孙 Sp4 here again features as a reminder of the generational conflict underlying your patient’s problems. And particularly the problem with the father, in this case.
Have you treated or even considered this trajectory before, Anna?
Apart from the deep pulse, what made you think of Yin Qiaomai? What’s her tongue like?
Keep us updated,
Una abraçada
Hi Armin,
If she keeps coming to see you, there must be something in her that feels attracted to the idea of change and she intuitively knows that you can help her in that regard.
Sometimes finding what that “holy grail”, change in this case, looks like for your patient might be useful. What change means for her, what it looks like, in what way she projects it, how she perceives change and how she has experienced it in the past. Sometimes this information along pulse-taking allows visualizing within the complete channel system where the blockage lies. And even so, because no treatment is ever the same as the same patient is never the same in each session, even at different times during the session, every move in every session requires continuous reassessment and re-evaluation of your treatment strategy. And that includes your own expectations and “hopes”. Luckily life is bigger than the outcome that our minds can ever imagine for that one patient. In that sense, every patient becomes an invitation to keep our mental door wide open to endless possibilities.
In this way, every moment becomes an opportunity for a profound change, not only for our patients, but also for ourselves as practitioners. And it is in those patients that represent more challenge for us that we encounter the best lessons for us to learn.
Keep us posted with those changes, Armin
Cheers
Hi everyone,
If he is not open to talk about his food habits you may enquire about the things he finds pleasant in life. Even more so, what he feels is missing in his life; what makes life fulfilling and worth-living for him… Then you might get an overview of what is comfort food compensating for. You might find sometimes that as the person is thinking about what you’re asking, the pulse suddenly changes and the pressure in both guan positions eases! That’s a sign that Daimai treatment may be applicable.
It’s also important to ask yourself what is your intention with the treatment and try to state it clearly in simple terms and let that intention guide your treatment. What is your intention with this patient for treating Daimai?
On the other hand, If Daimai is too full, a Kidney Divergent treatment may help to extend the capacity of latency. You might ask about signs and symptoms that may support this treatment avenue.
Indeed, as you say, in patients that keep coming and say that everything’s good there’s a perfect opportunity to delve deep into pulse-taking.
Regards,
