Tag Archives: American Acupuncture Council

“So as Matt said this time, we’re just doing the same thing, elevated ileum, but it’s its relationship to the shoulder girdle and then shoulder dysfunction and other upper extremity type problems. But we’ll give some more specific examples, but just keep in mind that there could be a whole ton of different, dysfunctions that could come from just one simple thing, like an elevated ilium.”

Click here to download the transcript.

Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors. Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hello, everyone and happy new year. Thank you very much for attending. My name is Matt Callison. Hi, thanks for attending. I’m Brian Lau. We’re from ACU sport education and the sports medicine acupuncture certification program. Thank you to the American Acupuncture Council for having us. We have a sports acupuncture webinar. It’s always really fun to be able to do this once a month or every other month. This particular one, we’ve got more information for you. We have such a good time last month with Ian Armstrong, who’s the teacher of the postural assessment and corrective exercise class in the smack program. Brian and myself had a great time discussing elevated ilium and his contribution to medial knee pain had explored the different sinew channels and different acupuncture points and exercises that can be used to help to correct this. Then Brian, I was thinking that’d be great to be able to actually do something similar, looking at an elevated ilium and its contribution to a superior shift of the scapula or an elevated ilium and the injuries that that can cause. And some exercises that would be useful to apply after the acupuncturist acupuncture treatment. So, unfortunately though, Ian had some cut amendments, he wouldn’t be able to join us. So Brian and I are going to go ahead and take this over. Um, Brian, what do you think about us going to the intro slide? And if you have any words or so you want to share,

Uh, no, no, basically I guess just the small thing is that, um, elevated ilium could cause a whole ton of kind of, uh, potential pain patterns of low back pain, hip pain, a whole bunch of them. Last time we chose to see how it can relate to the lower extremities, especially the knee for medial knee pain. So it’s just an example, example to see how to start prescribing exercises, how to add them into the full, comprehensive treatment. So as Matt said this time, we’re just doing the same thing, elevated ileum, but it’s its relationship to the shoulder girdle and then shoulder dysfunction and other upper extremity type problems. But we’ll give some more specific examples, but just keep in mind that there could be a whole ton of different, uh, dysfunctions that could come from just one simple thing, like an elevated ilium. Hmm.

All right. Well, let’s go to the next slide. I think that’s a good segue for you. Want to go ahead and start with this one?

Yeah. So, uh, with this image, uh, again, we’re, we’re focusing in on a postural disparity, uh, we picked an elevated ilium cause it’s clinically relevant. It’s very common. You see it a lot in, uh, in clinic and you see both how it can relate. Like I said to, to local pain patterns, like low back pain, et cetera, but, but how it really becomes, you know, since so much weight transfers through the hip, it’s really one of the key structures, uh, that determined cemetery for a lot of the rest of the body. So if you can balance the pelvis that goes a long way in and of itself to balance the shoulder girdle, to balance the lower extremity knee position, foot position, et cetera. Uh, so it’s not the only thing. Um, but it’s a really a big thing. So we’ll look at its relationship to the shoulder girdle today and give some exercises review, uh, refer back to last times podcast where we looked at some exercises for the ilium itself.

Um, and then we’ll look at some exercises for shoulder girdle, but then how to combine those with acupuncture treatments. So in this image, you see this gentleman on the right there’s a elevated and you can kind of see the schematic, um, image. You can see that he has an elevated ilium on the left. So he follow, uh, you know, the line from the top of each, uh, iliac crest. You can see an elevated ilium on the left. We’ll look at some other ways you can measure it in the second, uh, then look at just for now the relationship that calm. And this is the most common way that it would present is that you’d have a balancing, you know, in the girdle of the shoulders, the shoulder girdle balance, where it’s going to start to compensate to that elevated ilium. And in this case, you see that elevated scapula on the right. And that’s probably the most common way that this would present. It could do it differently, but this is definitely the most common opposite elevated scapula or a superior shift. You might call that

Just want to emphasize as well that Brian was talking about balancing the elevated ilium or any kind of, uh, ileum type of partial disparities. I mean, the reason why it’s, you can see that it’s going to be the middle section of the skeleton. That’s going to affect what’s happening above and below in addition to housing, the dantien and the kidneys just above. So by balancing that aspect that helps, helps all kinds of different things they acupuncturist can be treating from pelvic floor dysfunction, lower jaw disharmony, OB GYN, middle job disharmony. So looking at balancing at the muscle skeletal systems, not just for orthopedic, it’s also for helping those on food. So that’s, that’s great. And this is what we emphasize in, in the smack program is trying to be able to get that elevated ilium or any kind of partial disparities and pelvis to go ahead and treat that first, which I’m sure a lot of practitioners will actually go for that as well. Yeah. Brian, before we go to the next slide. Okay.

Yeah, the we’re going to be zeroing in, in a second more on the shoulder and scapular position, but in this particular model, you can also really see the change in the position of the neck. And I’ll just give you a very simple way to see it. If you could picture that ilium elevated. I think I mirror image near my right hands up, but I’m trying to make it look like my left hand to kind of match this, this model, if, uh, the aliens elevated on the left, the person’s not going to stand in such a way that they’re, they’re leaning, you know, the leaning tower of PISA over on that side. And everything’s pointing, you know, uh, to the left, they’re going to find some place to compensate that someplace could be multiple places. It could be in the spine, which you see a little bit of in this model.

It can be in the shoulder girdle, it can be in the neck, they’re going to find some way to get their eye and their head and, um, ear position, you know, the equilibrium of the body a little bit more balanced. So if the shoulder girls are really fixed, maybe they’re going to find a way to do that all in the neck. Um, but the common one, the, the very frequent thing you see at least, um, that’s going to be part of this dynamic is the, uh, contralateral shoulder being higher and the, you know, compared to the hip, so left hip right shoulder, right hip left.

Great. As you can see the image on the right, the patient has an elevated ilium on the left and looks like there is elevation on the right as well. He does have a little lateral tilt to the right with the scapula quite. I mean, with the head that Brian was just talking about. So one of the muscles that we’re going to actually the only muscle that we’re talking about, primary muscle that we’re going to be talking about as well, the levator scapula. So can you see where the levator scapula attaches on the image on the left, the superior medial border of the scapula close to small tests in 13, and then it’s other attachment is going to be the transfers process of C1, C2, C3, C4. So the superior shift of the scapula, and you’ve got a shortening of that. Levator scapula, small tests and CGU channel that we’re going to get into a little bit more in this webinar, in a lock short position, it’s pulling the neck to the lateral side. So multitude of injuries can be occurring from this that we’re going to be getting into. All right. All right. Well then let’s go to the next slide. The quick review. This is what we talked about last month about measuring the ileum. Um, so you can see the middle image. There’s the hands are coming in on the side, on the lateral side, and the fingers are placed at a level line, right on top of that alien, it gives you an idea of where side is going to be elevated.

Well, I’m a person that, that doesn’t work for the camera position. So, well,

Go ahead, Brian. You can finish.

No, I just wanted to say that just for people to know that the, if you’re measuring that you’d be right behind the person that mats moved to the side to be able to see whatever his hands are. So just that heads up.

Yeah. True. And then functional anatomy from, um, OHS, overhead squat from the national Academy of sports medicine. Looking also at what happens with an elevated Dalian was usually an asymmetrical hip shift. And there’s a whole slew of sinew channel imbalances that occurs with this. And once we see this kind of posture where we’re automatically thinking of different acupuncture points that we can treat for locally adjacent and distant of the primary channels and the Sr channels, in addition to what this kind of Bosch is going to be doing to the organ.

All right, well, let’s go to the next slide please.

All right. So here, you’ve got elevated scapula or also called a superior shift of the scapula, and it’s going to be associated with a lock short levator scapula that we discussed earlier, which you see here on this individual’s left side. This individual has an elevated ilium on the right often like Brian was saying it’s probably most of the times, but not all the time. There’s never an always is that the opposing side will have a superior shift of the scapula. Sometimes you’ll see a superior shift of the scapula on the same side of an elevated ilium, but what we’re going to be discussing here will still apply. All right? So this posture can lead to many different muscle and channel imbalances that we’re going to be discussing just a few of them. Um, some of the injuries that can happen with this will be rotator cuff tendinopathy, but Ron boy, minor constrain thoracic outlet syndrome. And there’s more Brian, do you want to say anything before we go to the next line?

Uh, well, I think we also have, uh, in the slide or is this the next one? Yeah, the downward downwardly rotated, uh, scapular position. And I think we have a little bit more on the next slide, so we can go over it a bit more there. Um, but uh, if you look at the scapula in this position, the left side, that I’ve looked at the glenoid cavity. So the, um, I have a little scapula here, so, uh, I think this look more like my, uh, left side of your looking through the rib cage at the front surface of the scapula, the glenoid fossa would go up. That would be upward rotation. This patient has more of a downward rotation of the scapula. And that’s pretty typical when the levator scapula shorten. We’ll talk about this again in the next slide, but, um, but that’ll play into some of the, um, discussions we have coming up in a few, few slides also. Okay. So next please.

All right, so this video’s not playing, maybe if you click on it, it’ll play.

I see. Okay.

So it’s not playing unfortunately. Well, that’s what happens with technology sometimes. So let’s just walk there.

I think it’s coming, isn’t it? Oh yeah. I can see them working on it. It looks good. There it goes.

Thank you. Okay. So one of the actions of the levator scapula as the name suggests it’s going to elevate the scapula. Now, what this is not showing is that you do have elevation in the scapular, but if you look at the origin, the assertion or the distal proximal attachments, it will also downwardly rotate that scaffold. If you will, Brian, can, you should have downward rotation again in your scapula.

Yeah. So tell me, Matt. And you can tell me if this is a case, this is the right scapula, but I think since we’re on, I think everything’s mirrored image. I’m trying to look at, make it look like the same. So does that look like the right side?

Yes. But can you do us a favor? Can you go ahead and keep it in front of you? Because it blends very well with the white background. Yeah. Okay. That looks really great, but you don’t have to raise it up a little bit, at least on mine now. Okay, good.

Yeah. So you’re seeing through my rib cage to the front surface of the scapula levator scapula would be attaching here to see one, two, three, and four transverse processes, a muscle of the small intestines in your channel, and it would lift or elevate the scapula. And at the same time it would soaps and please me or imaging, it’s hard. It would bring the side of the neck down to that side to its side, bend the head, but we’re talking mainly about the scapular position. So elevating the scapula. Okay.

That’s great. So let’s go to the next slide, please. I don’t think we’re going to talk a little bit more about the rotation. Okay.

[inaudible]

Yeah. And this one we’ll look at the downward rotation of the scapula

That’s there’s upward rotation downward. So when you see green about levator scapula, that’s when it’s shortening concentric contraction, it’s active and the Red’s going to be a lengthening contraction. So green is going to be upward, rotate downward rotation, and then you’ve got your upward rotation. So in a locked short levator scapula, you can see how it have a propensity to be stuck in a downward rotation, which will then when you’re raising the arm to shoulder abduction, like the scapula humeral rhythm, that images that’s on the right there, the greater tubercle, a big prominence on the humerus or the super spine EDIS and infraspinatus. And on the opposite side, the bicipital long head tendon can come up and hit that at chromium and cause a tendinopathy and impingement. There’s one more image. I think that will also be able to help with this. Um, can we go to the next slide?

Yeah, there we go.

Yeah. So then this would be when the levator scapula has been placing that scaffold into a downward rotation, as the arm goes into abduction, then the propensity for that greater tubercle to hit that a chromium is much, much higher leading to injuries that we were talking about. So all of this gives us actually protocols to be able to treat this, but for right now levator scapula is going to be a big one to do. Um, and we will talk about exercises here in a second. Brian, do you want to add anything to this?

Yeah. So, uh, the main thing we’re looking at those is very, I guess, biomechanical, we’re looking at particular muscles in this case, the levator scapula and how it’s going to elevate the scapula and how it’s going to tend to hold the scapula into that downer rotation of it’s shortened. It’s going to prevent the scapula from being able to follow the arm position, right. That would be normal movement to help keep that space between the acromion and the head of the humerus, uh, open. So it doesn’t pinch structures like the supraspinatus tendon, the bicep, uh, biceps tendon. So you’d want the scapula to be able to come upward and upward rotation as you’re going into AB duction. But if it’s kind of held too firmly in place by an overtight levator scapula and maybe some other structures, then it’s going to prevent that scapula from moving and then the arms going to bump into the chromium and, uh, that can lead to a lot of different pain patterns of the shoulder.

So that’s a very biomechanical view. That’s great, that’s great information and of itself, but then we have to remember that we have this whole, you know, really beautiful, intricate channel system. And, uh, the levator scapula, the muscle we’re kind of looking at in this case is a muscle of the small intestines and new channel. So we can needle it at the motor point, but we might include small intestine channel points to help contribute to a more thorough therapeutic outcome. We started with the elevated ilium, uh, and the quadratus lumborum is a big muscle that’s involved with the elevated ilium as are the AAD doctors, the thigh and hip add doctors. Those are muscles of the liver sinew channel. So we have this midday, midnight channel relationship that’s involved with, uh, maybe this local problem. We have a very, um, more comprehensive channel perspective that we can look at and start including points to directly affect the elevated Lam like the quadratus lumborum like add Dr. Longest liver channel points, maybe something like liver five, um, in combination with small intestine channel points and more local needling at the small intestine channel sinews. And then we can add other points in our acupuncture treatment based on the specific injury and other things we’re finding and you know, this person, blood deficient or inefficient or something like that. So this is starting to paint a more of a comprehensive picture that we’re looking at.

That’s something we find a lot in our own clinical practices, looking at the midday and midnight relationship between the liver on the small tests and channel, especially when there’s a shoulder abduction problems, such as what we’re seeing this slide, um, elevated ilium and shoulder abduction problems, pretty darn common. You’ll see that a lot in the clinic. Um, if you would, when you’re looking at the scapula, you guys, I take a look at that superior medial border of the scapula. That’s where the levator scap is going to be attaching where many people have that five Brodick tension in there that many of us will go ahead and needle right through that, um, that levator scapula, as we talked about before, it’s going to be attaching to the C1 through C4, transverse processes, attached to that. Then it goes down and it travels to the superior medial border.

Like I said, it blends in seamlessly with the super spy Natus muscle that’s located in the supraspinous fossa in this particular image. If you go disorder, large tests and 16 would be, then you’ve got large and tests and 15, just on the other side of the chromium, hopefully you guys are following along with this large test at 15 is where the super spine Natus tendon is going to be attaching. It’s usually about a quarter of an inch to an AF, probably five, eight, five eights of an inch wide blending into the capsule and attaching right onto the, um, a greater tubercle. Then from there, you’ve got your triceps part of the small test of senior channel, and then also going all the way down to flexor carpi on narrow switch. We talk a lot about the flexor carpi on there. Motor point is a magical, yeah, I’m going to use the word magical because it is empirical point that will soften the, um, a distal attachment, uh, levator scapula 99% of the time when you do actually get that flexor carpi on there’s motor point, right? It will soften that attachment side pretty dramatically. And this is something that we’ve been teaching in the program for probably about 10 years or so. It’s a really nice disappoint to use with levator scapula, shortening and pain at that proximal attachment. Brian, you wanna say anything else before we go on?

Oh, no, that’s good.

They were actually kind of moving right into, uh, exercises now. So the next slide, please.

Last month, these were some exercises or exercise, different levels of the, um, figure four crossover. That’s working quite a bit on the piriformis, this exercise. And a lot of the exercises that we use are based on [inaudible] work. Um, what we’ve done is we’ve actually looked at the different angles as far as the functional anatomy, the sinew channels, and we’ve modified his work, which actually happens quite a bit with people’s methods and techniques is that other people have good ideas about it. And then just kind of form it in a slightly different way. But we did want to give a shout out to Peter Garcia for his miraculous work and an exercise prescription, what he’s done over the years. Um, so again with this, this is what we’ve done for the elevated ilium one exercise, and that’s going to be discussed a lot further in last month’s podcast. And also we have a blog about it as well in the sports medicine, acupuncture.com website. Let’s go to the next side. We’ll talk about exercises where we can use for a levator scapula or a superior shifted the, um, this exercise for, um, elbow press is an exceptional exercise. Brian, do you want to start with that or do you want me to go?

Um, I can start and there’s a little bit of a, um, dialogues of you need to go back and look at it after the recording it’ll give a step-by-step, but the idea is you’re giving a little bit of a press of the elbows into the floor, but more importantly is you’re bringing this, the shoulder blades, the scapula together. So towards the midline in down. So, you know, in this case, levator scapula is going to tend to pull. It might be on one side, but pull that scapula up. So you’re D pressing using lower traps and using, uh, the, the rhomboids and middle traps to bring the shoulder blades together and down. So it’s the same time opening the chest and dropping the shoulder blades.

Hmm.

I don’t know if you got one dad, anything else about it, Matt?

Yeah, I was just looking at the image and how hands and Ian is enjoying it, and it’d be what the scapula is doing. And then 10% of it is going to actually be pressing into the floor. So this is a strong scapular stabilization exercise that works great after needling, um, or doing acupuncture to the levator scapula, pectoralis, minor, small tests and senior channel, um, a number of different points that we could use with this one. This is a simple exercise and kind of a triple star exercise that you can use even to advanced people, um, because it does require quite a bit of concentration to really get those scapulas to really form down and lock in. Then the next exercise is actually called just a second. Uh,

This is a short format, so we can’t go into too much, but, uh, if you go back at some point, if you want to look at the recording and look at the movements of the scapula, we were talking about levator scapula, but pec minor muscle of the lung sinew channel would be involved in a lot of these too, because it’s the antagonist agonist, antagonist relationship with levator scapula because it’s going to depress the scapula. So if it’s really short, maybe the levator scapula has to fight against it, but it also works with the levator scapula and downward rotation of the, of the scap. So I like this exercise in this case also because of that, um, opening and lengthening of the pec minor and kind of normalizing the tension of that, which is kind of a, not the direct channel we’re looking at, we’re looking at the small intestines in your channel, but how maybe the lungs and new channels coming in and relating to this picture, this exercise would be given after the acupuncture treatment. So maybe we’ve needled the pec minor on that side to make it more, um, accessible for the patient right away, you know, their body’s ready for the exercise kind of prime because we’ve reduced, um, tension in the pec minor and allow, or allowing them to more effortlessly do this exercise. Yeah. Cool.

And Brian, I’m sure we kind of rushed with this. There’s a lot of things that we really didn’t talk about. Like the lower trapezius being an antagonist to the levator scap elevation and depression and the literature, easiest being large attachments in your channel. So a size to be able to see that internal and externally related channels of the lung pectoralis, minor, lower trapezius, large intestine being called into Plex. What does that mean? Well, in our mind, if you would needle the motor points of each one of those, you’re already signaling those two mild fascial Sr channels. So therefore if you compliment that signal with more acupuncture points, adjacent and distal, it has to have an effect on those particular muscles. Cause it’s the signaling system that we use in acupuncture. Brian, you must anything about that? That’s good. All right. Cool. All right. So again, um, this elbow press is a great exercise to use as a preliminary exercise. So what about the next exercise please?

Yeah. Okay. This is one of our favorites. I would say triple star, maybe even quadruple started this. Um, this is an exercise that takes a lot of concentration and how we modified it a bit from how it was originally taught is we are increasing the, uh, or decreasing the thoracic flection. So we’re increasing thoracic extension. Let’s walk through that. So the first position the person’s going to have their knuckles on tide young, usually the middle finger there. They’re going to keep the wrist straight. The elbows are going to be out. As you can see, the knees are going to be at 90 degrees and hips are going to be at 90 degrees. We asked the person to go ahead and bring their elbows together toward the ceiling, keeping their fingers right at Thai Ong. All right. So by them doing that, you’ve got scapular protraction.

Then we ask the patient to begin the movement back down, bringing their elbows back down, leading with the rhomboids, leading with that medial border of the scapula and start to bring them together. All right. So you’ve got protraction and retraction. This exercise is really getting the agonist and the antagonist of those muscle groups working together. Now the emphasis, once the patient is able to do this success, now we actually increase it a little bit. We ask the patient to bring their elbows together when they’re going up to the ceiling, but above their nose. So what I’ll do is I’ll actually put my finger right above their nose and try to have the patient, bring their elbows up toward the nose, which is very, very difficult in order to do that. You really need quite a bit of thoracic extension, which is a wonderful thing to do when somebody has thoracic flection in those upper vertebrae, right?

For example, in upper cross syndrome and that head is forward. So this is a great exercise for that. It’s gonna, it’s gonna work the levator scapula quite a bit, a lot of the scapular stabilizers. And it’s, it’s definitely one of our favorites to use. This is also something that you may want to use with somebody who has upper jaw problems, for example, asthma or any kind of, of, uh, lung problems after COVID maybe C O P D, because how it’s working the front, move in the back shoe points and getting those muscles to be able to work in coordination. It’s going to work the channels as well and coordinate the channels.

Yeah. We had a question, uh, regarding this one, if somebody had a difficult timeline on the floor, so we cover stuff like this, a lot in the program where we have a multiple amounts of different exercises that can be done. That would be maybe a simpler exercise. If it’s somebody who has a difficult time of getting on the floor, cause maybe they’re not very conditioned. So I might go with a more simplistic exercise, but there is an actual variation of this, this, this exercise that that’s a little different, but it’s the same concept that can be done seated with a strap. It’s a little bit more isometric where you’re pushing out against the strap and lifting and doing some similar, similar, uh, focus. Um, but that would be, uh, adequate for somebody also, if, if that was, uh, you know, they were ready for that exercise, they could do the seated. Maybe they can’t get on the floor cause they have a shoulder injury and they, they can’t support himself. So you can definitely adapt this one to a seated position or you could just give them a more simple exercise.

Yeah. Cool. Good one. All right. So then what we talked about last time was using acupuncture as assessment, but also, um, using intradermal needles for increasing range of motion or decreasing the amount of pain during an exercise. For example, if somebody is having a hard time appropriate deceptively, trying to figure out how to do this exercise, or they may be limited in their range of motion, kind of stuck, or perhaps they’re feeling a little bit, um, slight pain or minimal pain with it, but it’s inhibiting them from doing the exercise. This is where intradermal needles on actual ordinary vessel points, but also you can use channel points to actual ordinary vessel points works pretty, pretty darn amazing. This is something that we teach in this program. And for those of you that have the sports medicine acupuncture textbook, let me think it’s in chapter four toward the end with, uh, exercise before treatment and exercise after treatment using intradermal needles. So it’s in that section chapter four. So what you’re about to see is a video of the smack program and the postural assessment and practice exercise. And there is a student there that’s having difficulty with actually doing this exercise. And so we’re applying intradermal needles based on what motion was the most painful or difficult. Okay. So let’s look at the next slide, the movie.

Now we know

That you can’t hear, let’s just read

[inaudible]. That is so awesome.

Yeah.

I still love her expressions so far. Um, yeah, so we can probably advance it to the next slide. We use a pine X needles from Sarah and, and you can get those from Lhasa OMS. Um, the point to a millimeters by 1.2 millimeter, um, that’s some of the best ones because it’s large enough to be able to create a sensation, but not large enough to be uncomfortable during movement. So those seem to be worked out pretty well with us. Yeah.

Uh, you can send them home with, uh, I mean, to keep them in for the patient for a few days to, while they’re performing the exercises to assist, you know, to keep that stimulation going. Yeah. Cool. Well, great. I think that’s,

Well, I mean, we could talk about this for hours, but no, I have, it’s regarded gone six minutes over that. So, um, thanks very much you guys, and I think we’re going to be scheduled again in February or March. Hopefully we’ll see you again then. Yeah.

And the next week, uh, Sam Collins is on, I’ll say I was going to be there. Awesome. Yeah,

I talk he’s, he’s hilarious. He’s really quite a sharp as a tack and he’s, he’s fun to listen to. So thank you very much. The American acupuncture council, Brian. You’re awesome as always. And thanks you guys. And hopefully we’ll be connecting again soon.

All right. Great. Thanks everyone. Goodbye.

Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/c/Acupuncturecouncil ) Follow us on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/acupuncturecouncil/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-acupuncture-council-information-network/) Periscope (https://www.pscp.tv/TopAcupuncture). Twitter (https://twitter.com/TopAcupuncture) If you have any questions about today’s show or want to know why the American Acupuncture Council is your best choice for malpractice insurance, call us at (800) 838-0383. or find out just how much you can save with AAC by visiting: https://staging.acupuncturecouncil.com/acupuncture-malpractice-quick-quote/.

Exercise Prescription for the Acupuncturists – Callison, Lau, Armstrong

Hello, everyone. Happy holidays. Thank you very much for coming. Welcome to our December issue of the sports acupuncture webinar podcast. My name is Matt Callison. I’m Brian Lau. Thank you very much for coming you guys. And thank you for the American Acupuncture Council for inviting us here. We have a very special guest today. Ian Armstrong, who’s on faculty and the teacher of the postural assessment and corrective exercise class that we have in the sports medicine acupuncture certification program.

Click here to download the transcript.

Thank you again for coming. Thanks for having me a bit, you know, watching you guys through these types of podcasts here for, for a few times, then I’m excited to join. Alright, awesome. Great. Can we go to that first slide there, please? And we’ll go ahead and do a little overview of what we’re going to be trying to accomplish in this very short 30 minutes or so a quick overview, and this is playing off of the blog article that Brian and I wrote on the sports medicine, acupuncture, webpage, um, exercise prescription for the acupuncturist in particular, it’s for, uh, when you have a patient with medial knee pain, a few different things to take a look at that can really end up helping quite a bit with, um, your patients.

And we’re talked about an elevated ilium and the muscle imbalances and the sinew channel imbalances that can end up causing the knee to move in. So we’re going to be speaking about that. Um, but also what can happen with, uh, PEs planus. So, um, let’s let’s, as a reminder, do something about this, uh, exercise prescriptions that we feel that the exercise prescription is a very important adjunctive therapy for an acupuncturist to use this. It’s just as important as prescribing herbs or dietary recommendations and exercise prescription is not only just for a postural imbalances and orthopedic rehab, but there are also many exercise prescriptions that are exercising muscles that stimulate the front move and the back shoe points, uh, as well as she cleft Lulu and, uh, Jean Wellpoint. So it’s important that we are exercising certain areas even for as food components, for example, like upper jaw, um, asthma, or even post COVID patients, how wonderful it will be to actually give them some exercises that gets their rip cage moving in such. And I know Brian has a few comments on this as well, so I’m gonna just hand it over to him.

Yeah, I think, uh, just the parallel that, uh, the, the space, you know, if you think about the whole chest and the abdominal cavity, you want a space in there for things to circulate well and move well. So if there’s a lot of collapse in the chest, well, that’s going to put a lot of pressure on the lungs and the diaphragm. If it’s, if it’s pushing inward, that’s going to put a lot of pressure on the liver. So to have really good, just circulation through the abdominal pelvic and through the thoracic cavity, um, corrective exercises, chigong, uh, Tai Chi, all of those types of movement exercises, which is a big part of the tradition of Chinese medicine, uh, is really essential both for like Matt said, orthopedic conditions, uh, especially, but for really any condition just to have proper circulation and proper movement throughout the whole system.

Great. So then let’s go to the next slide and Ian, do you want go ahead and start with this and walk us through?

Sure. So when we’re looking at, um, some contributions to, um, medial knee pain, there’s a couple of aspects that we’ve got to look at. Um, often the, the knee is really the joint that’s just caught in between two other joints that have a lot of range of motion that can have a lot of, uh, propensity for deviation, both standing or statically and through movement. So, um, in the pace program and smack, we look at both, uh, movement assessments and static assessments. Um, and with these two joints that I’m speaking of, I’m talking about the hip and, uh, later on as we’ll get to the, the ankle and foot. So in the first picture, we can see the gentlemen here, standing here with a plumb line down the center of the, of the body there. And you can see on his right side even a little bit more without having any palpatory confirmation, we can see that that right. Side’s got a little bit of elevation. You might be able to see even a little bit on that. Um, if you’re comparing the distance between the side of his body and each hand, you can see that there’s a little bit less on that right side. You can see a little bit of a fold on that right side. And you can almost tell that there’s a little bit of elevation of his, of his right ilium there.

Um, moving to the picture in the middle. We can see as a practitioner. It’s, it’s always good to confirm what we’re trying to see with palpation. You can see Matt’s got his hand over and on top of each iliac crest, and again, we’re his different patient. We can see that this, this person’s also got an elevated ilium on that right side. Um, and then we can confirm these, these, um, what will happen with these deviations are the imbalances of the myofascia the sinew channels and how it’s going to affect, um, the movement. So in this case, we, we like to use the, um, overhead squat. Uh, it’s it’s often used in the, in, in the national Academy of sports medicine or NASA. Um, it’s also a big movement screen. That’s that’s used in something called selective functional movement assessment that uses a lot of movement screens to try and help with pain and increased, uh, performance and function. You guys got anything to add to that?

Yeah, I do. For the, uh, actually two things for the middle picture. Uh, of course it’s a nice chance to see an elevated Valium again, but also, um, it really gives you a good picture of how to assess, uh, the elevated Lam. Now that math is kind of moving off to the side. So you can, you can’t see through Matt. So he’s moving off to the side, so you can see his hands, but if you were really assessing and there was no need to take a picture and he was right behind the person, the goal is to get your, your hands really at the top of the iliac crest, not just come in and feel bone, cause you might be in a slightly different place with each hand, but to kind of crawl up until you sink in just above the iliac crest sink into the area where it’s a little softer where there’s no bone under your knee, underneath your hands and come down on top of the iliac crest in the finger position really tells you if one hand is higher than the other. So that’s really the proper assessment, you know, a good way of assessing it.

Very true. I think it’s common to kind of miss that stat top of that iliac crest. It can hide from you. So sometimes I’ll even like to start at the rib cage and palpate down until I feel I’m in definite space. And then as you can see, as Matt’s using his hands, like, like, like, uh, levels that are really distinct, um, you know, landmarks of each of each height of each crest, um, and that’s really helpful to get, to get that clear distinct Mark and then just to get right at eye level with it when you’re assessing. Yeah,

You should be able to see it, but, but some it’s good to confirm with your hands. Cause sometimes maybe just a little bit of the adipose tissue sets on the structure and in a way that can confuse you or the pant line can confuse you or something like that. So, so the palpatory assessment is really, um, key. If I could add one more thing I’d like to see if Matt has anything to add to, and this is the last thing we’ll say about this because, um, the rest of it will be a little bit more on the biomechanics, but the person on the left of course has an elevated ilium. We could look, look at the musculature, the quadratus lumborum and stuff. We’ll talk about as we progress forward with, um, with the, the, uh, channel sinews that are involved. But if you kind of just think past the muscles for a little bit and think, well, his kidneys would be moving along the psoas muscle.

So what’s happening with the position of the kidney on the right or the liver. You know, the liver can have a range of motion that it does as you take a breath or as it slides in relationship to the stomach and the kidneys and all the organs, it can be complex, but you know, maybe that internally that that liver is stuck down to the kidney or to the intestines and isn’t able to sort of move freely. So he has to position himself in a way to sort of free and take pressure off that liver. And that’s what we were alluding to in terms of the internal design Fu can really be affected by posture and a lot of different ways,

Absolutely pelvic curdle, um, any kind of, of, of pelvic inflammatory diseases or any anything, actually, when you look at the dog food with an elevated alium, so let’s zero, uh, back into the medial knee pain with all orthopedic examinations, the practitioner will be thinking about what channels are affected in excess and deficiency. And therefore you can start figuring out what points do we be able to use. So this is a good segue then going into our next slide, going into our next slide. All right. Awesome bye. So here, it’s going to be taking a look, you’ll see a frontal plane muscles of the hip AB doctors and the hip Ady doctors along the gallbladder sinew channel, and also the liver send your channel. So when you have an elevated ilium, you can see that the hip AB doctors will be in a lengthened and relative deficient position on the side of the elevated ilium.

And then the add doctor muscles, the doctor muscles will be locked short and a relative excess. Why is this important to know, because it’s going to predicate your needle technique at the motor points of these particular muscles. So on the opposite side, you’ll see where the ileum is on a lower position that glute medius and minimus on the gallbladder channels in a lock short position, pulling that ilium downward. And then you have the add doctors are going to be in a deficient lock long position. Now these are only going to be in the frontal plane. Now these, these muscles themselves are going to be directly indicated with elevated ilium and as the person’s going into an overhead squat, what you’ll commonly see is that knee moving inward. Now there’s also other important muscle that we’re going to be talking about, uh, on the urinary bladder sinew channel. Ian, do you want to go from here?

Sure. Um, great explanation. I think from through the wonderful artwork on the left side, and then seeing the visual of me and an overhead squat on the right, you can see how the excess adductor, uh, is, can be pulling that knee moves need, uh, moving in, um, and the, the inability, uh, or the inhibition of the gallbladder sinew channel on the glute medius and minimus to properly support that, that knee and keep it stable. Um, however, there’s other things that we’ve got to tease out of this because it can, it’s not going to be the only culprit or it can be, um, other things obviously that, that, that they can cause that need to move in. Again, we mentioned the ankle, which will get and foot, which we’ll get to later, but also even looking at other kinds of muscles that are attaching to the hip.

And, um, th the issue, for instance, with the lateral hamstring group. Now we know that the lateral hamstring specifically the long head of the bicep is, uh, by articulate muscle, meaning it’s going to extend the hip and it’s also going to bend the knee. Therefore it’s going to cross that knee joint. So if you can think of it as the string on a bow and the leg being a bow, and how, if that string is tightening down, that leg is going to not have the ability to keep straight in. It’s going to start to collapse that knee to move inward. Um, so there’s other variations of this overhead squat that we would use to try and tease which one is being a culprit, and they could both be contributing to that needed to move in. Um, but we learned different variations of this overhead squat to, to try and tease that out, to see if that lateral hamstring group, um, is really contributing to the tightness and the not allowing that knee to keep straight and pulling that, that bow in. So that would be your, your urinary gallbladder, excuse me, in the urinary bladder SNU channel. Brian, you want to comment on that,

Uh, just to add to it, you know, that could, of course be in the same way that Ian described that could be the, the lateral head of the gastrocnemius also. And for that matter, Proteus longest that whole urinary bladder channel on that side. And again, just like we did in the sand, those both cross the knee, you know, gas rock coming from above hamstrings coming from below. So if you think of the whole channel from the hip to the foot, as Ian was saying, you know, you can see on the lateral side that bow, that, that line is short and creating a bowing of the knee versus the more medial hamstring and medial gastrocs. So it’d be relative excess on the, um, on the lateral side.

Right.

All right. So good, good, good. So just as a reminder for everybody, what we’re describing right now is zeroing in, on one partial dysfunction that can cause medial knee pain, that’s useful for the acupuncturist to assess now looking at the biceps, femoris that lateral hamstring being an excess position and what we already covered with the hip AB doctors and 80 doctors being excess and also deficient. So that’s going to be important. Now we also have to look at the constitution of the patient, right? So if we have our assessment, we do our tone, our pulse diagnosis. We figure out who is this patient with this medial knee pain, and perhaps maybe actually have the Ritchie stagnation or Libby inefficiency as well, where that Oregon is also contributing possibly to some of that medial knee pain, in addition to these partial dysfunction. So we would be developing our acupuncture treatment plan and protocol, which we don’t have time in this, in this particular podcast or webinar to, to go over.

Um, but after the acupuncture and a balanced acupuncture treatment, and then doing your myofascial release techniques or cupping or quash on Sasha, everything that we do as acupuncturist, you’re now priming body for exercise prescription. And this is really no different what our founding fathers have done before with acupuncture. And I’m sure teaching Tai-Chi exercises, movement patterns, and she’d gone. We’re just describing it in Western biomedical terms. So therefore, let’s go ahead and discuss, um, a, uh, really excellent exercise for lowering an elevated ilium after the acupuncture treatment, which would be in the next slide. And then this would be a nice little segue also for Brian. If you want to get ready for the demonstration, we’ve got a little treat for your products in his office, and he’s going to be demonstrating some of these exercises for us. So let’s introduce them first, the exercises, what you’re going to be saying.

So here on the slide on the left, you see, uh, Ian on a figure four wall. So his right hip is at 90 degrees and on his left ankle, you see that lateral malleolus over extra point. Hey Dean. So he’s going to be pressing the knee outward in order to work on the hip. The hip abductors are going to be contracting in the hip Ady doctors are going to be relaxing in this case. So you could see on the side of an elevated ilium, if you put the person into this particular position, the lox long deficient hip abductors on the elevated side are now contracting isometrically. Now this is after your acupuncture treatments. So they’re really in primed and ready for this. You have treated, you’ve treated the adductor muscle with the reducing needle technique. And now the adductors in this particular position are being reciprocally inhibited. So as complimenting the acupuncture treatment, now, if the person has lack of flexibility in this particular position, there’s a number of different sequences that we can do, which Ian, do you want to follow up with that? And, uh, just briefly just describe it and then we’ll go right into Brian so you can show it.

Sure. So, um, I mean, great description of me on the left there. Um, when we’re looking at these are other variations of what we would call figure four exercise. So you can see, um, someone else here on the right hand side, um, being able to, um, add a little bit more of a rotational type of movement to, um, again, as Matt was saying, uh, contract and, and stimulate the contraction of the gallbladder, sending channel with the AB doctors and getting that release and stretch of the adductors can, which will especially be profound and, and, and effective once the treatment has been completed. Um, I think, I imagine we’re pretty ready to move on and see, um, Brian here. Cause I’d love to talk about some of the nuances of these exercises and the keys to really making sure that they’re effective.

Yeah, that’s great. Let’s go to Brian. Awesome.

Great. So as you can see, Brian set up here, he’s got his hips flexed at 90 degrees. He’s got his knees flexed to 90 degrees. Um, it’s hard to tell from this angle, but we really want to make sure when someone is up against the wall like this, that their starting position is, is neutral with their feet. And by that, I mean, they’re not AB ducted. They’re not adducted, uh, with their feet and as Brian’s just demonstrating now, they’re all aligned North South or superior to inferior. So you don’t want to have that, that movement, um, of, of the misalignment of the feeds important to have those nice and aligned and together in line with the hips.

So,

Um, running with the two examples, meaning the, we saw on the first slide and then the second slide with the artwork of the, of the musculoskeletal system and the imbalances of the muscle groups. Let’s say that Brian had an elevated right side. Um, so it’s, it’s nice to you notice when you’re looking at the exercise in the photos before you saw that, obviously we’re, we’re addressing one side, it’s not a bilateral exercise, you’re addressing one side at a time. So when it comes to, um, giving this exercise to your patients, I think it’s nice to obviously have them do side both sides, but also it’s important to have them give a little bit more attention to that elevated side. We want to get more activation from that deficient gallbladder, uh, Cindy channel, the glute medius and minimus that are elongated and lengthen it inhibited by that elevated ilium.

So we’ll have him start with his right ankle. We’re going to have him go ahead and put his right ankle over his left knee, just like, so you can see that lateral malleolus even with heading. We want to make sure that his right foot is generally flush with the outside of the thigh. And it’s a good marker. So he’s not too far over, uh, and crossing beautiful. Um, and then he’s going to go ahead and extra, you know, abduct and externally rotate that hip and push down just like, so, and when we’re going through this exercise with the patient, we want to make sure that they’re not compensating at the hip and seeing that hip elevate. I know if it’s hard and humid, for those of you who are watching, you can kind of see what he’s doing through the mirror there and get an idea of how that compensation can often be had.

Um, with these postural exercises, you know, they don’t seem too difficult and, uh, and, and they aren’t. But the, the, the thing about them is, is when we have these deviations, uh, for a patient it’s often that they will, are used to moving their body to get out of the, the crux and the importance of, of the effectiveness of what that exercise is trying to do. So paying attention to these little deviations or wiggles and how they’ll try and get out of doing that, that the exercise properly is really important to pay close attention to.

Hey, Ian subgroups, I’m sorry for interrupting. You’re probably just about to say it, but I just want to make sure that we do cover some patients, right. As we know a difficult time getting that figure four, because of tightness in the hip, what would, what would you instruct to do

Beautiful Brian? Yeah, exactly. He just can’t get there, or maybe he can get there, but there’s so much deviation at the hip that hip starts to really tilt up, but that’s just, that’s no good, right? That’s not going to be effective. There’s no way that they can get out of that and get into proper alignment. So what we really need to do is decrease the, the angle of the leg. That’s not being stretched. So in this case, it would be Brian’s left leg. We’re going to go ahead and have him decrease that, that hip angle. So meaning that, that taking down that 90 degrees of hip flection, and really trying to make sure that we can give proper space for their, whatever their flexibility is to get that right aid, uh, ankle back over the left knee. So, and then being able to AB duct and externally rotate that hip, being able to stay, put that transverse plane, if you will, through that hip is not being, being deviated away from, and we’re getting a nice activation of those AB DRS, gallbladder, sinew channel, and that, that w you know, openness and the release of the, of the adductors and the liver sinew channel

So should we maybe move on to the rotational?

Sure. And then once the person can able to graduate from these particular exercises, and we’ll go into more, uh, an exercise that w that the person needs to have more flexibility for. So let’s, let’s take a look at that one.

Yep. So now, um, Brian’s in a position called a hook line position. You can see the soles of his feet are on the floor. Typically, I would say that I like to have about, um, 90 degrees of knee flection. So he’s a little bit more than that right now. That’s okay. That’s something that’s actually sort of customed to that patient. Again, you can decrease or increase that angle depending on how flexible they are. For instance, if the person is not so flexible, you can lengthen that, that, that, uh, there you go, just like that, just like that brand. So obviously you can see that that needs coming down. It will be easier for that patient to put that ankle over the knee. And then if they’re not getting enough stretch, you can increase that angle too. Right. You can go the other way. So going, you know, up just like Brian did allows that increase and maybe more stretch if that’s what they need depending on the patient.

Um, so once they found that, that right angle, you’re going to go ahead and take that right ankle over the left knee. Again, making sure that the ankle that left that left foot is flushed with the outside of the thigh. He’s going to go ahead and let that wrote that whole sole, that w that right foot to be on the floor. So he’s going to go ahead and rotate over. So that whole right leg outside of the leg, you know, that perennials, that it down all, that’s flush without side of the floor. He’s going to go ahead and dorsiflex and activate that right foot. So can see through the mirror, but he’s, he’s, he’s flexing that right foot. That’s all flush with the floor. We want to make sure we have Brian go to the other side so we can see that.

Sure. Good idea,

Please. He’s flexing that, uh, that right foot. Now that’s on the floor, the left sole the foot should be able to stay on the floor. So if that’s not being able to stay on the floor, then what we need to do is decrease the flection of the hip angle, just like we showed in the beginning. Uh, that means he’s probably too steep of an angle. It’s too much of a stretch. So it’s like the figure four wall. He’s going to go ahead and externally rotate an abduct AB duct, his, his left leg. And, uh, we haven’t really discussed that too much about the time. So you can hold for this for about 30 to 30 to 60 seconds. Um, I really also like to give a cue for the patient to really reach with the, in this case, it would just, this would be for Brian’s left knee.

So kind of reaching that towards the mirror, we’ll call it a quarter of a long gait, that area, um, um, and give more of a stretch, sometimes felt in the TFL sometimes even felt more in the quadratus lumborum, which is also on that liver sinew channel. So this one in regards to it’s difference with the figure four wall, I think sometimes people, uh, patients can feel more of the stretch moving in through that liver sinew channel up through that quadratus lumborum. You can also, if, if he’s comfortable with it, go ahead and rotate his head towards the leg that is, is being activated. So that left side for him, as you can see does that to the mirror. So I, that location can really feel all the way up through that necessary. Cause as, as we can see, we didn’t see in the artwork, um, uh, that, you know, the, the elevation of the ilium is also going to cause a shortened quadratus lumborum on the ipsilateral side.

This is excellent. Yeah. Um, we’re running short on time, so we’re going to have to cut that one. Um, Oh, this is also a it’s. All right. This is great. This is really good. Um, for step-by-step information on this exercise, we have that in the blog article on this sports medicine, acupuncture.com, it’s the September as the December blog article. So, um, let me discuss a little bit real quick. What we teach in the pace class, paces and acronym for the partial assessment of corrective exercise. Uh, we talk about intradermal needle using pine next needles on extra ordinary vessel points to be able to, uh, increase their range of motion and decrease pain. For example, if you had somebody that was in this figure four position, and they had some hip joint problems, or let’s say some, um, uh, discomfort in the hip abductors or so you could use a particular master and confluent points, uh, to help decrease this. So the patient can stay in that position and, um, perform these exercise successfully. So now what you’re about to see right now, a particular mastering fluid points. I’m not sure why there’s feedback happening right now, but anyways, um, let’s go to the next video. Please stop the CB right now.

This is from the pace class in a Chicago smack class, which you’re about to see

What’s your [inaudible] might have to do more and let’s see how [inaudible]. That’s pretty cool. Isn’t it? Let’s keep this rolling. This is really good. You guys, this was a really good one. You guys ready, guys? This is a really good one. And what the problem that she was having is just getting into this position. She was spending a lot of pain and the glute medius minimus. It was fatiguing. She wanted to actually get out of this position. So that movement is actually pretty complex. Isn’t it? It’s rotation. It’s extension hip AB duction. So we went ahead and did gallbladder 41, Sandra five on both sides. And she’s now able to do the exercises. Stay into this position is really quite an interesting face that she had is a lot of surprise. It was good. Okay. So if that one didn’t work, we would have used probably do my Yon chow or ran my child to be able to see what the extension and the happy option you guys good. Do it making sense. It was the points on the unaffected side that were most tender to the unaffected side were the most tender. All right. Good job guys. You’ve gone.

All right, let’s go to the next slide please.

All right. So what we’re using are the pioneers needles by Sarah and, um, the distributor for that is Los OMS. Los OMS is the sponsor for the sports medicine acupuncture certification program. That’s the size needle that we normally like to use people. Um, it will stimulate the receptors enough, the extramural vessel mastering called flow points enough. Um, and it’s usually painless for the patient when they’re doing exercises. So I know, I know that we’ve gone over time, everybody. I really apologize, but we only have like three or four more slides. So let’s go ahead and finish this up. Um, let’s go to the next slide please. And you want to take this over for the biceps femoris?

Sure. We’ve just got a couple examples here of some, um, some good bias, uh, bicep for Maura stretches again, understanding that with its biotech nature and how it crosses the knee joint, it can be a culprit for that knee moves in as well. So, you know, there’s a variety of different ways to address the bicep for Morris in terms of trying to get at a little bit more lengthened and, and, and not pull, have so much tension to pull that knee in or to move that knee. And so, um, you know, there’s a variety of other ones, but these are just a couple of examples, um, that you can do to try and, and solve that side of the knee moves in from the hip.

Yeah. We don’t have time to go into all the assessment for it, but there are ways in the overhead squat to change things to really tease out. Is this more coming from the, the UV, you know, biceps from Morris, uh, gastric, uh, area? Is it coming more from the liver gallbladder, uh, Sydney channel sort of aspects and it could be a combination of both. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

So let’s go to the next slide so we can see this. Yeah,

Go for it again.

So, um, as, as we, we mentioned, there’s, we’ve talked about some of the different things from different aspects from the hip that can cause that need to move in. Um, we can also be looking as we mentioned before at the foot, um, and how it can, you know, be a contributor to that knee moving in. So on the left side, we’re looking at, um, the, uh, has planets, um, and also sort of the foot abduction, uh, being part of that issue to move that knee, the knee moves in. And sometimes even if you don’t see, um, any, any Pez planets or, or, you know, from a standing posture or a foot abduction from the standing posture, when someone goes into an overhead squat, the, the tightness of that whole, um, lower urinary bladder, so new channel will come to light and you’ll see that foot abduct and even maybe start to collapse and overpronate um, so that would be, you know, restriction and tightness from the urinary bladder. So new channel, like your peroneal groups, your lateral gastrocs, some of the things that we mentioned that that could take that tightness and pull that knee in.

Yeah. A little change of subject, I guess, by the quick question popped up about the previous example of a San gel five. Uh, there was a question of is Sandra five or six Sandra at five and gallbladder 41. And typically in the corrective exercises, when there’s difficulty for various reasons, I would tend to help with more rotational aspects of rotational problems.

Yeah.

Um, the protocol for this isn’t in chapter four of the sports medicine acupuncture textbook, and this is something that we also teach a lot during each one of these, uh, pay series and the sports medicine acupuncture certification program. Going back to this slide, let’s take a look at the image on the right. Let’s just put our, our, our assessment and clinician hat back on when you’ve got that patient with medial knee pain and they go into an overhead squat and you see that knee moving inward, or possibly that foot then goes into abduction. That starts to move out. That’s really demonstrating a lot about the sinew channels that we discussed already, but let’s look at it. It looks slightly different way is that we saw that as you was mentioning earlier, that that doctor is going to be in a lock short position. It’s going to be access, pulling that knee inward, the biceps femoris being part of the urinary bladder sinew channel is also pulling, pulling that knee inward.

So therefore that also means that the medial hamstrings are going to be deficient now that entire UV myofascial Sr channel, even all the way down into the foot. All right. So that lateral musculature of the urinary bladder senior channel will be in an excess position, which I believe is information that we discussed in a Pez plan webinar that Brian and I discussed in a webinar a few months ago. So you can always go back and take a look at that one as well. There’ll be more information about needle techniques and session, how to get old, lift the arch with that. So you’ve got a whole treatment protocol locally, just to be able to treat this. And again, you’re always going to try to link this to the organs because nine times out of 10, there’s always going to be some kind of Oregon disharmony that the licensed acupuncturist can treat this traditionally is treat traditionally as well. In addition to this very Western biomedical way of looking at things, Anything else

That’s good just to highlight that Ian Ian’s demoing the overhead squat. And I dunno, even if you were just doing that for the picture, or if you have a tendency for the right knee to move in, but kind of what Matt was saying, if, Oh, go ahead.

I was going to say it’s probably both. Yeah. Yeah. I think probably I have more of a tendency of that foot to move out. And I think it was probably trying to demo that made many moves in, but yep.

So just to highlight, you know, through other assessments can tease out of, this

Is more of a balance between abductor and abductor and maybe this patient has signs of liver cheese stagnation, or liver blood deficiency. So you’re really putting all of it together. You know, this is, this becomes just another assessment that ties into the, uh, the full tongue polls questions, all of that.

Excellent. All right. So our next slide we’ll room going over is one quick exercise, which I think we actually taught in a previous webinar, but it’s such a great exercise for that, a foot abduction or a Pez planus piece. Um, so we’ve actually got two more slides, but let’s start with this one that we’re on right now. Uh, Ian, do you want to go ahead and take it over from here?

Sure. Um, we call this, uh, inchworm in the pace, uh, seminar series. You can also, I think you’re looking it up if it’s something that you want to learn about. Sometimes it’s also called a short foot exercise, but the first, uh, picture on the left-hand side, that’s the, that’s the beginning, uh, that’s the beginning photo or starting position. Um, you know, patient can be sitting, um, even if they’d like to, with their foot on the floor, um, standing cause just fine too. Um, and really making sure they’re getting all parts of the foot, that heel, maybe just under that big toe and part of that, uh, you know, right around UV 64, um, that part of that foot should also be planted on the floor and what they’re going to go ahead, as you can see in the second picture is that that big toe is starting to scrunch.

So what really you’re doing is you’re starting to get activation and we’ve talked a lot about the tightness or the restriction from the urinary bladder, so new channel causing that foot abduction. Well, we didn’t mention it when it’s talked about, I think in the previous, uh, seminar that Matt mentioned through, um, um, the American Acupuncture Council here is that the spleen and kidney sinew channels are ones that we’re trying to activate. And beginning of those channels, we have the abductor [inaudible] and the flexor health has previs. Um, so we’re really trying to activate the flexor hallucis brevis and the abductor, how has to try and get that activation and flection of the big toe in that medial arch. Uh, so they flex that toe forward and then they go ahead and lift and fall through. So it’s almost like your inch warming your foot, hence the name of the exercise. So you go ahead and scrunch that toe, kind of follow it up with the heel and then go ahead and lay that toe flat again and repeat maybe three, four times one way and then actually start to crunch and push it back as well. So you would go both directions.

Cool. You now Brian’s got a modification to the, Oh, sorry about that. Brian’s got a modification for this one. Uh, Brian’s got a modification for this, so let’s go to the next slide. Brian, let it go.

Yeah. So in this one, you, if, if you kind of see the ghost image on the top corner that his foot, uh, AB duction abduction, so you’re flattening as as much of the medial arch, as you can. You’re exaggerating that PEs planus and really collapsing that medial arch as much onto the floor as you can, to give yourself something to move out of. And then you’re sweeping the, the foot along the floor. It’s not as much a leg rotation is trying to use the foot muscles, the curve, the foot to make the foot like a going from a long position where the medial arch is flattened to the floor, the lifting and, and shortening that medial arch. So you’re like fully contracting that medial arch and the muscles that Ian mentioned abductor hallucis primarily. And this one, I think, and probably a little bit of flexor hallucis brevis and then you could repeat it, turn the foot back out, flatten the arch as much onto the floor as possible, and then make one big sweeping motion where you’re turning it in.

Yeah. Excellent. Well, gentlemen, this was, we gave a, a lot of information and just a super quick overview for those patients that are coming in with medial knee pain. Uh, please take a look at the hip for an elevated ilium. Please take a look at the foot for going into abduction, make sure that you are looking at the channels that are affected with this. As we described, make sure that you also are treating the patients constitution with this, because that does make tremendous changes and we’re not just treating locally. Uh, that’s going to inhibit us quite a bit. So let’s remember our roots in traditional Chinese medicine. And, uh, gosh, we went away. We went over. I’m sorry, everybody, but you know, this is what a good surprise. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. Really, really appreciate you very much. My pleasure. I’m

Very excited to join with you guys. I, I,

Yeah, it was awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Good, Brian. You as well. So it’s a pleasure speaking with you and we want to thank the American acupuncture council, um, for again, inviting us to be able to do this. Um, and also for next week, we’ve got Jeffrey Grossman coming in for the American acupuncture council. So make sure you, uh, tune into that as well. You guys thank you very much and we will see you in January happy new year. Happy holidays, everybody

[inaudible].

Integrating East and Western Medicine in Fertility

Hello and welcome to another edition of, to the point a show, very generously produced by the American Acupuncture Council, um, Virginia Doran of luminous beauty. And today my guest is, uh, a longtime colleague and friend is Tsao-lin Moy, and, uh, she’s been practicing for 18 years in New York city. Uh, she founded the Integrative Healing Arts Center and she has many accomplishments and has just been a publicity magnet. Uh, and also she published a book called will I ever get pregnant?

Click here to download the transcript.

The smart woman’s guide to getting pregnant naturally over 40. So, because she has many areas of specialty, but because she has this on fertility, she’s our guest today. And she’s going to talk about integrating Eastern and Western medicine in fertility. So, uh, without further ado Tsao, um, please love to hear, you know, your approach because I know you’re very adept at combining the two, which I think is important for this kind of condition, Virginia, and yes, thank you to the American acupuncture council for producing these Facebook live shows.

Um, so I’ll, let’s, uh, we’ll start. Um, so I’m going to talk about integrating Eastern Western medicine and in particular with fertility, but as practitioners of East Asian medicine, um, we all are now really integrating what we do with Western medicine. And, uh, so what I’m going to use is this presentation that is from fertility, uh, summit, and I’ll be kind of adding a little bit and changing up as we go through the different slides. Okay. Um, so it’s really, you know, more and more, uh, we’re starting look at, uh, patients that want are looking for natural, uh, remedies and, and to be able to do both. And so one of these things is, you know, looking at what is Eastern medicine’s approach compared to Western medicine. And, um, so these are, how would, uh, change Chinese medicine relate to improving fertility, but this also relates to how can it improve our health outcomes.

And, uh, and especially right now in the time of COVID, right, there’s a lot of, uh, post, uh, COVID viral fatigue, a lot of, uh, inflammation and Chinese medicine acupuncture is fantastic for that. A lot of questions that come up with fertility are age factors. Uh, and of course we’ve been listening in the news that, uh, there are like 55 year olds that are able to actually, uh, you know, bear children or carry, right. Um, and, and really is looking at what is the best approach. And if I was speaking to a, uh, you know, patient population, what’s the best approach for them. And, uh, you as, uh, practitioners, you know, looking at what is the best approach you can offer to your patients, um, that you feel comfortable with and they feel comfortable with, um, and this would be with acupuncture and herbs. And if you also have other, uh, you know, types of healing methods, uh, that you can also offer, of course you would add those in, uh, accordingly.

And so we remember the Chinese medicine is really, um, something that is personalized medicine, and that is what makes a big difference. Uh, Virginia already kind of went over my, um, a little bit of my bio. Um, I know Virginia, we both graduated from tri-state college of acupuncture. Uh, so, um, we’re kind of, we’re in this family tree of learning and, and, uh, and also helping more people to heal themselves. So I’m gonna, I’m going to just speak, uh, we don’t need to know more about me, let me go move forward here. Um, so really the, um, when you’re working with, uh, infertility and especially women, um, really it’s that, you know, patient and practitioner, uh, relationship, uh, that we have empathy, you know, for what they’re going through, and then we can also help them to solve their problem. And that would be, they want to have a baby, they wanna have a healthy baby.

Right. And, uh, um, so why is Eastern medicine? It’s a better model and can serve better serve women better that are experiencing infertility. This also applies to really overall health. So looking at, you know, how we as East Asian medicine practitioners really kind of fit into this big umbrella of a health model. Um, uh, now with regard to infertility, statistics are one in eight couples are experiencing infertility in the U S and, um, this is not just the us, but also overseas. And we’re looking at as a global health problem, it’s estimated 12 to 15% of all couples are experiencing infertility, meaning they are not able to get pregnant, uh, on their own or within, uh, the time, you know, that would, that would, uh, it should, let’s say, quote should take. Um, and, and really we’re looking at infertility is also more of it is coming from the male aspect.

Uh, one of the side effects of COVID-19 is they’re looking at a can cause sterility in men. And so a lot of the focus has been on, you know, female fertility, egg, quality, um, ABI, elation, uh, uh, hormone imbalances, and a lot of not, uh, not a lot of attention until recently. Um, has there been attention more on the male aspect of it and really it’s, uh, you know, important that this is a collaboration, right. Um, so one in a third couples, uh, the problem can’t really be identified, it’s considered kind of, uh, you know, unexplained or in fertility. Uh, and, and, and in that case, it could, it could be, you know, a little bit of, of both, uh, or there’s some underlying, um, issue that has not been addressed, which we address very well in, in Chinese medicine. Um, so I wanted to just highlight a little bit that, you know, the Western medicine model is one we call like broken and fix.

And so it’s treating the symptoms, right? You, you like, you’re, you’re better if you don’t have a cough, but the underlying aspect of it is like, why did you get the cough? You’re run down, maybe there’s something else. And this is what applies with, uh, couples that are experiencing infertility and also in general, our overall health, why aren’t we recovering? And, um, so a lot of it can be, you know, the, the, the model in Western medicine is going to be vaccinate antibiotics, antivirals, right. And that’ll help to get rid of something, but there is damage in its wake. And then also, you know, the recovery, uh, so things like, uh, infertility treatments, when you go to a fertility clinic, it isn’t without risk, right? Because the, um, the hormones have side effects. And also a lot of the procedures are pretty invasive and, uh, they don’t necessarily work.

And they’re also very expensive. Um, but this is not to say you don’t do that. You, you know, you tell your patients don’t go and see a, um, a fertility specialist. It’s really like how, if, if they’re at that point, how can you help them on their journey? Right. And so coming from the aspect of, you know, Chinese medicine, East Asian medicine, is really, we’re looking at there’s more than the physical that’s there. I mean, as a Chinese medicine practitioner, we really practice, this is energy, right. We work with cheap, we work with energy and, and that is in our language. Right. Um, so the, you know, there is also this aspect of what I wanted to also, uh, kind of highlight in the Western model. They really separate out that spirituality, um, the mind-body connection. And, uh, one of the, the, the strengths of Chinese medicine is really where we’re cultivating that connection.

How do we help our patients? Um, so this is a, another, just a bride that explained, you know, infertility is on the rise and there’s also an infertility industry. It’s actually a growing industry, right. Because there’s a lot of money to be made. And, um, here’s a picture, this is what a couples are looking for. This is the end, what they’re looking for. Right. Um, so where does industry, there’s going to be a lot of, uh, pressure for, uh, your patients to do hormones, et cetera, et cetera. And you’re, you probably are. If they have decided they’re going to do that, it’s not that you’re not gonna be able to change their mind. Um, but what you need to do is look at a collaboration, um, with your patient and also, uh, with the, um, the fertility or the, uh, assisted reproductive therapist. And really, um, what does the Chinese medicine ma is what’s different than let’s say a Western model is really that we are looking at that the healing is taking place in the individual. We’re not curing them or facilitators. Right. And I think it’s really important, um, that we, we remember this point is like,

We are treating the who, not the what.

Right. Um, it’s very easy. And, and I, and I do see it in a lot of our profession to start to talk about treating the symptom and forgetting, or not forgetting, but maybe not so much the focus on who that, you know, who is the person that is experiencing that. And, um, this is something to remember as a practitioner and especially with infertility because, um, a lot of statistics are gonna show over 35, um, hormone imbalances, and then, you know, what are your chances of getting pregnant? And while there are statistics that are useful, what’s important is, is that your patient or the patients that are coming to see you, that is not them in the statistic. It may have relevance, but always to remember that, um, this connection that you’re going to help them with is physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual. And this is this looking at this whole health perspective.

And so Virginia, if you have any questions or you want to interrupt me, please feel free, um, how you’re kind of differentiating the whole health model from Western medicine, but you’ve, you’ve answered it. Okay. All right. I just want to like, but the, so the, the, the, the topic is really integrating. So even, um, so there, it is possible that if, uh, if you have patients that are using, let’s say Western remedies, that you can still come at, uh, the, uh, you know, helping them from an Eastern model from that whole health model. Right. Um, one of the things I’m going to move on with this, about the, the, the rates, because we know that, you know, with the, the limited or, or very narrow, uh, research that has been done with acupuncture, it’s very, um, successful or at the same time, the way that some of these, uh, studies have been designed are really kind of like, wow, you know, some, you know, uh, can you cure for stage four cancer?

Well, it’s kind of like, almost nothing is able to help. And then you’re asking, you know, like, Oh, let’s, let’s throw something this way and see if it really works. And then we’ll write a study that says, Oh yeah, this doesn’t work for stage four cancer. Okay. So we always have to look at, you know, like the studies and their relevance and, and not let, um, I would say, uh, the scientific model define the kind of medicine that we do, and also influence us in a way that we start to, um, look at, Oh, this treats that, that treats that we really want to remember, you know, the, the person that we’re keeping that we’re treating. And so, as a reminder, you know, Chinese medicine, East Asian medicine has a, the aspect is about balance. And these are the Dallas principles of dynamic balance of yin and yang.

So this is, uh, going back to, you know, foundations of Chinese medicine, one Oh one. Um, and I don’t know about you, Virginia, what I’ve found is, is that they’re simple and they explain everything and, and, and very, uh, you know, the more that you’re practicing, you’re the more you’re understanding that dynamic balance. Right. Um, so in terms of a, let’s say a strategy when we’re looking at what is within our S in the body, let’s say for, let’s say a woman’s body, um, or a man’s, we’re looking at what is the union young that’s out of balance. And so, uh, this could be like hormones, it could be sleep. It could be their relationship with their partner, uh, where they’re living, where they’re working. Um, and then of course, how that manifests for them in terms of maybe they have irregular cycles, nonambulatory cycles, uh, fibroids, uh, other, uh, let’s say, uh, symptoms of another, I would say, are symptoms of something being out of balance, right?

So even if a woman gets surgery for fibroids, whatever was kind of causing it, the mechanism still needs to be addressed, right? And so this is something that we do really well, uh, important, uh, is to that relationship with your patient is also educating them and empowering them to know more about their body, right. And this is again, uh, we’re facilitating, you know, helping them to create a stronger mind, body connection. Uh, it’s also known as interoception where they, where you develop that sense of understanding what is happening inside your body. Uh, this is also important for us as practitioners, that we develop a practice, a mind-body practice, so that we also can share that energy with our patients. Um, and in terms of, let’s say a treatment strategy, uh, when we’re looking at, uh, fertility, but also with whomever is going to come into your practice.

We want to regulate what’s the yin and yang, right. And, um, the, the approach, I would say, no matter what, you’re going to be looking at, regulating the nervous system, right. Helping with sleep digestion, and that in turn is going to help to balance their hormones. So different methods of treatment that we use, um, acupuncture for sure. Um, if there are herbs that are appropriate and you have the training, that’s something, uh, bodywork, uh, we can use essential oils, meditation exercise, and also, um, you know, when we’re speaking with our patients, we actually do a lot of mindset work, right. We’re actually helping them to navigate through their difficult and to reframe for them, or help them to reframe the, uh, you know, the challenge that they are experiencing. And, uh, one thing that we know, and also using food and herbs and, and maybe changing their environment.

One thing that we know with, um, acupuncture in the research is, is that it does shift brain chemistry and affect neuropeptides in the brain that actually, uh, stimulate that self-healing aspect, uh, as well, like as well as, um, immune response. And so this is great for what we do. Recent studies have shown that acupuncture is helpful in reducing the inflammation from the cytokine storms that a lot of people have experienced from COVID-19 and continue in a post viral syndrome. So with women’s health, um, according to Chinese medicine, and this year, this is a review, um, it’s really her menstrual health. Her, the health of her uterus is a really good indication of the overall health of her body. Um, in a Western model, this is something known as the endocrine system, or that regulates the functions of the entire body. So when we’re looking at a woman’s health, and in terms of, you know, is she, it as she, her fertility health, we really want to also look at her overall health, right?

Cause overall health, if you’re overall healthy, then you’re going to have healthy reproduction. And, uh, this is a good clue for, for all of us that we have to kind of like look at overall health, uh, and constitution, no matter what someone is coming with. Right. And, um, I know, uh, you know, acupuncture is fantastic for treating pain conditions, right? Sprained ankles, uh, uh, low back pain sleep problems. Uh, but those are also symptoms of something bigger what’s happening in their nervous system, uh, with an injury. Why aren’t they healing after a certain period of time? Um, so someone who’s really healthy, it doesn’t mean they won’t get injured. Um, what will happen is, is that after a certain period of time, they should reach full recovery. Uh, mostly, uh, what I see in my practice and definitely in the, I believe in the Western world is that, uh, the amount of time for recovery is not a given or, uh, that, uh, people go back to activities, uh, much soon, uh, you know, too soon and have not fully healed. And then what happens is that they end up having long-term, uh, lingering problems that they can’t quite figure out. Right. Um, so, you know, one of the things, again, is that, you know, with Chinese medicine, East Asian medicine, is that it’s very personalized. Um, we’re not a one size fits all. Um, we really need to look at the whole person. And as a reminder, a lot of times there are things that, um, maybe we’re not going to CA we won’t catch if we become too. Micro-focus.

Let’s see. Do you agree?

I’m wondering, um, just curiosity, about what percentage would you estimate, uh, women come for fertility from a deficiency based cause versus like a, you know, obstruction of cheat?

Well, I mean, that’s an interesting, because you can have obstruction of chief from deficiency, right. Um, I would say that there’s much more deficiency, not necessarily blood deficiency, but exhaustion. So a lot of efficiency, a lot of stress. And again, looking at, uh, you know, constitutionally here, we’re con we’re on the go, we, you know, we need to do more, a lot of the women that come to see me, they are like, Oh, maybe I should like start exercising, or let me start this, you know, let me add something in versus, you know, take something away. So having these, uh, very, uh, intense workouts that it’s, it’s not too, that you don’t want to exercise. It’s really like exercising more is not helpful if you’re tired and you’re not getting enough rest. So I think, you know, that’s, um, you know, yin tends towards deficiency.

Young tends towards excess, very famous words from our, uh, the founder, right. Um, that, uh, the it’s, it really becomes there’s this imbalance that starts to happen, right. Uh, uh, women, uh, you know, they have, uh, I would say that they, as they get aged, they’re definitely moving towards a deficiency. You know, there’s the, the, the bleeding, um, if they carry children, lot of their, uh, their DJing, their essence is being used, their blood is being used. Um, and this is, you know, compared to who men women’s bodies are, the ones that undergo a, a trip, like a change every month, a transformation through the menstrual cycle. Does that make sense? Would it,

No. Okay. So

The health and healing using East Asian medicine is really, if we look at a whole health model, right, uh, what’s happening, uh, in their life, you know, women, especially for women, women, very social, they’re usually doing a lot more, they’re searching, uh, to, you know, find out what’s wrong. Uh, they’re the caregivers. Um, what we’re seeing is, um, so then to kind of answer your question even more, uh, women tend towards getting much more depleted, definitely energetically and emotionally. Uh, and, and this is really being exemplified right now with the, um, the COVID-19 situation. Like so many women, suddenly, even if we’re working from home, they, um, have taken on the additional burdens of, uh, taking care of the kids, managing the school, uh, really, you know, organizing. And, uh, I think there was one study that showed, you know, when they asked the, the, the men, like, well, how many hours of how many productive hours do you have? Uh, it was like, Oh, I’ve got like 35, 40 hours a week productive. And for women, there were like 11, you know, because they had, uh, so much more to, um, take care of. Right. And so this is something to also take into account when we’re looking at overall health in particular with, uh, you know, women who are trying to get pregnant. Okay. So this is actually, um, at the end of the slide, so I’m going to stop the share. Right. Okay. Um,

Let’s see what else there is. I mean, obviously there’s an app for this, but what inspired you to write your book? Well, you know, Virginia, so many women that, um, come to me or just suffering, they had a lot of failure from, uh, trying to get pregnant. They had, oftentimes we’re not the first, uh, you know, the first stop they go through, uh, several cycles of IUI or IVF. They’ve tried many different things. Um, I’ve noticed that a lot of my patients, when they come to see me, they’ve already done a few cycles and they’re really at this, uh, point of frustration and struggle. And, you know, I looked at the statistics is actually very interesting where they came from. Um, I had to, to track it down because everywhere it was like the same statistic almost verbatim. And then I found a journalist who had done the research, and apparently those numbers come from, uh, churches in France from like 1682, eight 30, where they looked at baptism records and the, the maternal age.

Right. So we’re looking at, you know, 17th century birth records, and then they, they did an analysis and they were like, Oh, only a certain percentage of the, the women were over a particular age. And so they use that as a guidance and, and it, and it is a statistic, it’s an accurate statistic for that aspect. So this is where we start to get into a lot of the studies and the research. And, but what isn’t taken into consideration is, you know, did they have children before, um, you know, how about, uh, other illnesses, you know, there wasn’t any hygiene, right? A lot of, uh, there were a lot of women that were dying in childbirth, or there were a lot of infections, there was child mortality. Um, there was the living conditions were horrific, right. So kind of using that model or using that, and then applying it to right now where we have, you know, good nutrition, we have education, we have housing, we have a lot of things that, uh, the women and the families didn’t have then.

And so, uh, and also nutrition wise, right. So this is something that, you know, looking at, you know, where is the information coming from? You know, how accurate is it? How can you, how does that really apply to your circumstances? Right. So I say, yes, there’s truth in those numbers, but is it your truth? Right. So that’s a, that’s a whole other discussion. And then, you know, because we do very personalized medicine that, you know, we, you know, the, the, the chances of getting pregnant, the odds it’s much higher. Right. And especially even if, you know, a woman decides that she’s going to do IVF or IUI, as soon as they add in the acupuncture increases like tremendously the success rate.

Hmm. Yeah. So what, what are the general statistics, acupuncture helping for infertility? Well, you know, that’s actually a very tricky question. Um, the one statistic that we ha that was really done is a pretty old, I think it was from 2003 and was the German study that had done just very limited, like a certain protocol of numbers. And they had increased the, um, the success rate by like 42%. It was a very high percentage. Um, and the women were all, like, it was really like women that got acupuncture versus women that did not get acupuncture and really to bring those numbers to, let’s say 42%. That’s huge. Right. So aside from have there been other studies done, um, recently, uh, bad. I don’t know, uh, statistically, we also look at, um, and this is what I tell my patients, you know, when you go to a fertility clinic, the fertility clinic is really seeing people who are struggling.

And so those numbers, there are many women, many, uh, you know, couples that have children later, but since they don’t have a problem, they’re not going to show up as a, in the statistics. Right. So it’s like, Oh, you know, when somebody works in the emergency room, they see the worst things that happen. Um, but there’s like a whole other population that don’t get sick or don’t have heart disease, or don’t have, uh, those things. And so when we start to look at data, we have to really look at, you know, much more individually, what is going on for that person. I mean, we do all have, you know, commonality, the biology, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but you know, our destiny, our health destiny is really something that we can make a difference and make changes, you know, for the better, it’s not set in stone.

Right. Right. And of course, you know, it, the results are only increased when it’s combined with herbs and lifestyle and whatever that patient needs. So, absolutely. I mean, this, this is really a collaboration. And again, like to kind of re to reiterate, um, you know, this integration of East and West, it’s not an either, or it actually works much better when, um, you know, wherever your patient is on their journey. You know, they don’t necessarily all need hormones, but if they do, they’re there, right. And we want to look at, you know, how can we support that person for the best outcome. Right. And no matter what, what I look at it is that with the Chinese medicine model East Asian medicine model, is that we are supporting that whole person and helping them in the end, the result is that they can have a family.

Right. And so we had to look at like, how do we work really together for the best outcome? Right. And yeah, herbs. I mean, if, uh, I have a patient that is going through fertility treatments, of course, I always say, check with your doctor. Are they okay with you taking herbs? Like we really need to have that dialogue open, not like it’s a separate thing. And also I want to know, um, if somebody is taking different medications, um, so that we, we need to really be able to do what’s best. I would not recommend herbs for somebody if they’re already doing something pharmaceutically, uh, that, uh, well, we could have a discussion about is really, um, you know, maybe there’s a way to, uh, you know, lessen them or, you know, talk with your doctor about, you know, alternatives, or can we try something, um, always the patient’s safety, right. And, and, and, and the trust. Right. So, um, that’s what I we’re, you know, that’s how we’re going to work so much better and help a lot more people.

Yeah. So, well, you know, I’m so glad you were able to come today on such short notice and the timing was crazy, but, uh, it worked out and, uh, of course, you know, always, you know, give a hundred percent everything you do. So, you know, um, it’s just great to have you, uh, is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up? Well, um, what I would say is, is that right now is really the time for us, as, you know, Chinese medicine, practitioners, acupuncturists, alternative medicine, to really, you know, step up and real and be heard important to, you know, educate the public about, you know, what it is that we do. There is a lot more information that is coming out about acupuncture, herbs, you know, for health. Uh, and, uh, I know a lot of times practitioners tend to not want to post or write articles or, you know, get out there.

Um, but it’s important that, um, that we, as practitioners are visible, right. And that, uh, the public knows that we can help them. And we have a lot of other solutions, including, you know, pain instead of being on opioids. This is a huge issue, you know, that we are expert at helping people with pain. We are expert at helping people recover from surgery, uh, from nausea, uh, you know, helping immune system and more recently definitely for, you know, reducing inflammation, uh, you know, from this, you know, the inflammations from COVID-19 right. And so when, you know, everyone’s looking for the, the, the magic bullet of, uh, of a vaccine of a antibiotic of immunity that w you know, we, as practitioners can actually really help people have healthier lives. Right. All of the comorbidities that are out there, uh, we’re looking at a whole health model, and this is something that, you know, is going to make a big difference in terms of the quality of life for, uh, you know, the, the public.

And especially in America, we need a lot of help here. Uh, and, uh, but the important thing is, is that, uh, that as practitioners that we’re able to be found, and a lot of times practitioners, they just kind of like hide, you know, they’re they hide. Uh, so that’s what, um, that’s what I’d like to, to say to all my colleagues out there get visible. Well, you haven’t been hidden and that’s for sure. Um, well, thank you again, and thank you for the American Acupuncture Council for producing this. And, uh, I’m Virginia Doran, luminousbeauty.com. Uh, you can reach me there, uh, and, uh, on Facebook and Instagram. And, um, we’ll see you next time. Okay. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks.

Nanopuncture with Clayton Shiu & Poney Chiang

Hi, my name is Poney Chiang from Toronto Canada. I met my opinion education provider from new everyday.net. Welcome to today’s live Facebook broadcast for American Acupuncture Council. My guest today is Dr. Clayton Shiu from New York City…

Click here to download the transcript.

…Creighton and a bachelor of science in human physiology from Boston university and a master of science with traditional Oriental medicine from psychology, went into medicine. He received his PhD in acupuncture, and moxibustion from the Tangi university of treaters, Chinese medicine, and completed as well as residency at the first teaching hospital of Tangie. Any of you that are joining us today. My note that this is the hospital in which the movie 9,000 year old takes place, and the Clayton were close to you with their father and modern acupuncture. His name is Dr. [inaudible], who is the inventor of a neuro rehabilitation medical. She now KHL, um, Dr. Hsu is the creator of the narrow punches stroke and neuro logical religious rehabilitation system that he teaches across the country. Dr. Sushi. I mean the, uh, the father of modern acupuncture, invited Clayton to present his breakthrough research and then a punctured system at the 2020 international acupuncture conference in change in China, Clayton holds faculty positions at the American Academy of Chinese culture, health sciences in Oakland, and at the American college of nutrition and Chinese medicine, teaching short rehabilitation courses for their doctoral program. Thank you for joining us today. Clayton, how are you doing?

I wanted that. I’m sorry. I blanked out a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Uh, would you mind telling us about your experience doing a PhD in tangy or what was that like?

Oh, okay. Um, so my time in tangent was about three and a half years approximately. Um, it was a great experience. Um, it was, it’s a hospital facility that’s quite large. Uh, they treated about 10,000 stroke patients a day, um, as a whole. So we were able to really see all kinds of different kinds of cases. Um, everything from like, like full paralysis of the patient to seeing like a nasal tube being put into, um, the patient to help them feed and also seeing how acupuncture can even take a nasal tube out eventually and give the person the ability to swallow and chew food again. Um, so because of all the different wards and different buildings, um, you could find almost any kind of case, um, and kind of track how acupuncture over the long-term can actually treat and help the patient. And I think that was a major advantage of being in that environment, whereas quite often in our own private practices in the States, um, possibly even Canada too, like, you know, maybe we might see a patient for one week or two months at the most.

Um, and it’s not treating like these kinds of severe kind of cases, but in this case, at the tangent first teaching hospital, we can track patients over six months, eight months a year, et cetera. So it’s, it’s, it gives you a wider, bigger perspective on, on an arc of how a person can heal versus, you know, when we have a private practice, we think, Oh man, okay, maybe in six sessions, something should happen or not. And so my, my perspective on time and also, uh, frequency for treating, uh, certain neurological disorders changed a lot after being there. So

Yeah, it must have been great to be able to see it sort of firsthand the CMB applied every day. Um, I would imagine PA patients are admitted to the hospital and begin acupuncture immediately, right? There’s no waiting for six weeks before they’re discharged from our Western hospital before they come to our private practice. Right. And they’re doing acupuncture every day, maybe several times a day.

Yeah. They, um, at a hospital like this for probably getting treated like at least two sessions of acupuncture, two more sessions of physical therapy, moxa, um, you know, Twain off like, uh, herbal medicines, you know? So, so in a sense you’re getting treated like six to nine times a day, or you’re very active. You’re not very complacent basically. And I like the rooms are, uh, in certain words they’re very big. So like, you know, Chinese are very family oriented, so there’s there’s room for your whole family to kind of sit there, you know, and be loved. So it was very nice to see that too. Um, but yeah, and it was, it was great to see like different, um, like the different directors and specialists in each ward, they were good at different things. So you could, you could pick their brain and ask them, like, how would they needle something? Or why is, why are you using, you know, spleen six this way versus that way, you know, et cetera. Cause that’s a lot of the devil’s in the details, you know? So, um, you puncture, so yeah.

Was like amazing. I’m jealous. Okay. Um, so, um, tell us about your style called nano puncture. What if it’s possible in a few words or a few sentences to give us a nutshell one nano?

Sure. Um, so after I returned to the States, uh, um, I want to give the system of what I was doing. Um, like a kind of a different name. One is it’s a play on words because nano is like the smallest measurable unit in most cases. So it was a play on words of Tai Chi, right? Because Tigie could refer to the smallest or the largest, um, kind of measurement. So nano is referring to like that we’re simply using like needles and the acupuncture, but we can have a large effect to treat like paralysis or treats speech issues or treat, you know, pretty miraculous things. Whenever you see like acupuncture do a very spontaneous kind of changes someone that’s still fascinates me today. Um, and then the other word origin of nano puncture was I was, I was treating a very famous, uh, prostate surgeon and he didn’t believe in acupuncture at first.

And so when I treated him, he could feel me manipulate the needle and I basically converted him. And so, because he was doing sensories, right. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t need to like the best deference, which was a very small right on a tissue. So he was the first surgeon that kind of related to what needles can do because this needles are a little bit smaller than ours, you know? And we were saying that, Oh, the instrument’s so small. It’s like, it’s like, nano-sized right. So, so that’s how we came up with the word nano puncture. So, so in a sense, nano is like the smallest, smallest unit. Right. Which is like the acupuncture versus reviewing like a major machine or a major, you know, device like a gamma, like a gamma Ray or something like that. So, you know, we’re using just the needles, we’re able to get like an amazing result. So yeah. So that’s that for that. Um, and then mix them with a training from can Jen has just 20 years of like sports medicine and orthopedic experience and stuff like that. So, so we gave it that label. Yeah.

Actually I’m glad you brought up like gamma knife and things like that. Because as part of the material that you teach you to teach something called photo biomodulation and I take it, that sounds a lot like star Trek to me, which sounds really exciting. I’m nothing wrong against dark trade. I’m a trache. So tell me about what that is. Sounds like full-time for Peters.

Okay.

Right. The photo biomodulation or, um, uh, could you repeat your question one time? Cause the, uh, the signal got a little slow.

Tell us what photobiomodulation is that, are you teaching your training program?

Sure. So, uh, what we like to do is even though we’re using, um, or using acupuncture and traditional needle manipulation methods, I like to combine modern technology with what I do. Um, it’s kind of the yin and yang to the practice. Uh, I do like photo biomodulation a lot because what, what sunlight is the chlorophyll red light is to the mitochondria of your cells. And so it’ll actually reset the P and bring energy and create energy into the cells of your body. So interestingly enough, for, for, for us as humans or animals, or, uh, or what have you like, we, we have tissue, right. And if you take this flash like off my cell phone, right. So this is every color in the spectrum, but if I put my finger over it, okay. Like this, right. You see a red light. Okay. And the reason why is that wavelength is about 610, uh, nanometer wavelength.

And that is the wavelength of the red wavelength color. And the red wavelength color is the color of light that can penetrate through our flesh into our muscles, which is what photo biomodulation uses. So that red light okay. Passes through human flesh into the tissue, into the cells. And so with photobiomodulation you can now pulse the frequency to adjust to things like gamma, brainwaves, or Delta brainwaves. You can, you can actually, um, increase the wavelength up to 700, 800 or near infrared light. Um, and when you do that, the neuron for infrared light spectrum will actually kill the viruses, including COVID. That’s why a lot of our devices today have like, you know, the cell phone, cleaner box or the air cleaner with the UV light, you know, and that’s, and that’s not a new thing. Anyone that has surgery before they do any surgery or down to work, they always flash a UV light device to actually prepare the room.

So,

Um, so that’s, so what we do is we use photobiomodulation, we will put it in a tissue that’s maybe we knew we activated the nerves of that body, but we know the tissue isn’t is still weak and fatigued, so we can use red light that way. Um, there’s also devices that go into the nose, right. Or into the tongue area. And what happens is because of the cranial nerves, like cranium, or, um, like the old factory created owner and the nerves attached to the hypoglossal, you can simulate that rather than help, but speech and also with memory. So for like all commerce patients, there’s a great device called the V light, which there’ll be like a headset and like a little stimulator that stimulates gamma, um, for the speech, right. Gamma, wavelength, and then a nose clip. And the clip will shine into that, that area of the factoring of that has like thousands of little Villa.

Okay. And when I’ve, when I worked for end, that it’s actually helped patients, who’ve had like, uh, dementia and memory fog where actually seen noticeable improvements, you know, and that’s a great device it’s shining off, you know, a red light wavelength, um, up through the nose. So, so the great thing about, yeah, and it works great with acupuncture. So like, whereas acupuncture can move CHAM, blood, right. Things like red light and OXA charges, the blood gives it energy. Do you see what I mean? So one thing creates like the flow, the other thing creates, like in a sense, um, like March she, for that blood or for that tissue. So

Do you have a preference of doing, uh photobiomodulation first and then acupuncture or vice versa? Do you do them at the same session or the patients come in separate sessions for different modalities?

Oh, no. I always do acupuncture and like a full neurological assessment first, and then we decide if they need, um, photobiomodulation um, and the, you know, the thing is, is even though it’s great for like, if you have lower back pain, if what I can tell you is that if you have more of a pinpoint lower back pain, or if, you know, it’s affecting the disc, I would use acupuncture first and then do the photo biomodulation to follow up, uh, because acupuncture is still extremely precise. Um, and then once you get that flow, it’s good to have that. So we have like, would you have a light bag? We have the region pod at my office. Um, so we, what we did was created like a rejuvenation studio. So we may have, like, we may have taken acupuncture to a certain extent. And then we feel like, okay, we know everything is rewired and plugged in together, but you know, the power sources and high enough still send them a sample. Yeah. Like let’s, let’s use, use the red light or let’s use like give the person energy, you know? So then we may say, try to do like 10 sessions of red light and then come back. We’re gonna reevaluate. Um, yeah. And, and the interesting thing is, uh, photobiomodulation will actually work on the digestive system. It’s not just for muscles and tendons. Um, we’ve had people had, um, digestive issues and swelling or water retention and a lot of dampness and the red light actually works. Photobiomodulation works great for that. So

Cool. And I like your analogy. Um, you have to make sure things are connected properly first, before you try to turn off the power, right. There’s no point trying to power. It is not connected. So to that, presumably through acupuncture, we’re reducing the resistance of the, um, of the nervous system. So now we have greater flow, right. That’s resistance or more or more conductivity. Now, once that groundwork is done, now it’s ready to actually get some sort of tonification from the F for the red light. Then did I read, I can actually go somewhere and do do the things that it’s intended to do to help you understand. Thank you very much for that. Um, can you tell us, you know, um, how, how can acupunctures, um, benefit from learning from you or learning from, um, nano puncture?

Um, well, I think what I do is we do give like neuro anatomy lessons and education on what a stroke concussion or traumatic brain injury is. But what we do is I set them a [inaudible] program that I did from 10 and two different modules. So, um, what we’d like to do is bring back a lot of the classical knee manipulation, um, so that, you know, you can, you can manipulate something with your needle and also get like the different, like, effects that I learned through [inaudible] or, you know, if we need like heart one, we, you can feel, and you can even direct it into each finger, like the sensation of, of the nerve and stuff like that. So we train you on how to do that. Um, so we might take a section of the body, like the arm or the leg, and for one weekend for about 16 hours or, you know, more you’re constantly practicing and needling mix them with, um, I’ll invite, like just, I’ve never met and I’ll demonstrate how I would approach them in front of the crowd, so of acupuncturists.

So we, we treat them together, but I like to, I think there’s a lot of little details, um, even just, even just down to positioning. Right. And I know like your work is amazing with, within the Academy and dissection and stuff, and, you know, if you don’t position the body correctly, we can’t needle. Right. We can’t get into that sweet spot to manipulate the Meridian and the nerves and the tissue. So it’s, uh, I think that takes like, almost like, uh, like committed, coordinated group practice. It’s like, it’s like when you join a, like a tiger group and everyone’s trying to do form at the same time, you know, and right. One bird was done in one minute, the other people are done in 10 minutes and you, you tend to reverberate together. And so you can feel, you know, the training and what you have to do to the concussion part of it. And then there’s the hands-on part that I think makes our modules special. Yeah.

Can you share with us like a very memorable patient or a case where you, you know, um, feel that you couldn’t have helped them as well as you could, or her as well as you could have had, you know, incorporated let’s put about modulation or Chanel K char or something, some of the things that you’ve learned in China, or some of the things that you discover yourself, you know, private practice,

You mean, like was difficult. And then when we tried that technique and it made it work or something like that, like yeah.

Something inspiring for us. I never get tired of listening to those success stories.

Right, right. Um, yeah, I think, I think, uh, so there, there is quite a few patients, um, that, like, one of my things I left to do is, uh, speech and speech paralysis and dysphasia. And we, you know, we had a patient who, uh, had a very severe stroke about three years ago. And, um, he was, you know, he had salivation problems. It has salivation problems, he’s in a wheelchair. And, um, it’s a difficult case for anybody to treat basically. But at the same time, like just kept putting in different points, like non [inaudible] and angled correctly, like GB, Toni, and long glues, like [inaudible] and stuff now. And when it came close to, uh, to the election time, right. And this patient is usually he always like this, he’s kind of like his eyes are closed, you know, he’s very quiet. Right. And we would treat them twice a day. Like he stays at my office all day and we treat them twice with about a three hour window in between. But about like four weeks ago, when it came close to election time, you know, we asked them who, who we should vote, or, you know, he’s lying there and just goes by them like that, you know, like that,

Yeah. It was like the first word he spoken in our office that was like, you know, cause, uh, you know, it wasn’t a yes or no question. It was something you had to think about. And then later it kept going and we asked him, well, who should run for president? And he said, Dr. Shoe. Right. So we were like, like he could cognitively had a sense of humor. Right. Like he could put that together. So after that, and my staff were like, we just have mocks on the neck. We kept doing all this stuff in the brainstem. And, um, yeah. So it was, uh, it was pretty cool. So it was, you know,

Maybe, maybe you can sit in a nomination for you to become the surgeon general [inaudible] yeah.

Yeah.

Would you be able, um, to give us some tips or advisors, some simple technique or insight, uh, from your unconscious system so that maybe we can start applying a little bit. I know it’s not something that we can really learn over a webinar, but if, is there anything you can, any of tips and advice at the thing I, myself and our viewers would be very appreciated.

Yeah. I think, um, no matter which system you’re using, um, one of the things like Dr. Sherwin says is, uh, he was famous for, for using the principle or creating the principle of quantitative manipulation. Right. So, and what that means is is every 10 minutes we would do a technique like Sparrow pecking, or Phoenix flapping their wings on plants like neg Juan or Sonia and chow because he knew, and he could tell that like every 10 minutes you have to re stimulate the nerves. So my advice is like, it doesn’t matter if you’re using [inaudible] or not whatever technique it is. Like I would go back, we’ll just leave your patient there for like 30 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever, like every 10 minutes go back and just touch that needle. Uh, give it a little adjustment, no matter what your technique is, you know?

And then you’re going to see like a more drastic change in results because, because maybe the body responded that it plateaus and during the session, you can peak it back up. You know? So that’s something that he was very strict about. Like everybody knew that in this hospital, it was very interesting. And I knew that when, uh, one of the hospitals only had 200 beds, he would, like, I heard he would run out of the office, make sure someone manipulated the needle correctly, then run back to his, like, you know, to his conference. He was very strict on that. Yeah. And then also just trying to take care of your hands, whether you’re practicing Tai-Chi or sword work or something, like treat your hands, like they’re gold because, uh, you know, they’re your instruments, right? So you want to make sure you’re always like, you know, don’t, don’t just neglect them and, you know, leave them on a table somewhere, but treat your hand really good and keep them like help because when they’re helping and supple and soft, you can, you can get better results too. You can be more sensitive and it increases your, your tingly, which is like your listening skill, like the needle. So yeah.

To touch detention, the, uh, advisor about, um, sort of re stimulating the needles every 10 minutes or so she didn’t give us an idea, like what they’re doing, kind of w or in your practice that you saw, um, like how long was the average, uh, stroke. We have acupuncture session. And then within that timeframe, how many times are they going into re-stimulate?

Yeah, so, uh, I would say like the, the average time takes about probably about 45 minutes to like an hour for a stroke patient, because you’re going to treat the front for about 20 minutes and then the back for 20 minutes or a specific part of the body. Right. And then you should be like every 10, 15 minutes, you should be going back to manipulate the session. We usually say that like, one course of treatment would be 30 sessions at that hospital. Right. But a lot of patients in the word I was in, um, it was like an international word. So like patients who were living in that hospital for, for like several months, like they, they were getting in a special program, you know? Um, so, you know, in terms of like, it was very congruent to what we say about neuroplasticity. If you think about like, you know, we, usually we say, right, but if, if something’s pretty severely damaged, like if there is damage to the brain STEM or to some of the upper motor tracks, you know, you’re looking at 20 or 30 sessions.

And I think the important thing why I’m glad you’re a teacher and, and other of our peers are teaching, this is because, you know, this isn’t like spraining an ankle new, you need to explain to the patient a care plan and figure out, um, how long, and realistically it would take for them to recover this. That’s not going to be done in five sessions and five quick sessions, like, you know, um, so it’s important that you can guide and manage the patient on the law through that process. So, yeah, I mean, one of the inspirational stories is, uh, I want to add to that is like, for instance, uh, there’s a patient, um, and his name is Jim Wharton and he was the, he was the creator of active, isolated stretching. He’s he coached many Olympic athletes and runners. Right. And he had a stroke, uh, uh, about a year ago.

And he came into my office about a month after the stroke. And he was, he completely could not move. Um, you know, he had a gastric tube and everything he couldn’t speak. And I can tell you that one year later. Okay. Because it was a very severe stroke. Uh, well, within six months he was already eating without a gastric tube and he’s a healthy guy to amazing specimen person. But one year later he was riding the train, the subway train, and he gave me a stretching session. So he treated me instead of I treated him. Right. And it was amazing. Yes. But realistically,

Yeah, yeah. A year is nothing compared to having to get your life back. Right. I mean, it’s all, it’s all relative. Um, right. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us about an Ana puncture before, if our listeners and viewers find out more information, do you have a website or some social media information? You can let us know so we can get in touch with you or get more information about your upcoming training sessions.

Sure. Um, it’s an amateur seminar doc. Um, and my clinic website is, is, uh, the shoe clinic.com too. So, uh, we’re gonna, we’re going to create some, um, new, online format so people can start learning the different modules. I’m teaching again. Um, cause of Irvin can’t really, um, easily meet face to face, but we’re going to create, we’re going to do the academic portions. And then later we’re going to have like group, uh, when everything is more in control, we’ll have like a group practical time too. So, but yeah, we plan to put a lot of the modules. And so it’ll be like upper extremity, lower extremity, speech paralysis, uh, concussion, like, um, but the first one will probably be the base. We call it the, the, the classical, uh, points, or I actually caught them. They’re all flash. So, because I believe the Chenelle

Cocho points, everyone should know and know how to manipulate so that at least you have something in your toolbox, but yeah. So we’re going to have that coming up in 2021. So yeah, very excited. Thank you very much, Clayton. It’s been awesome talking to you and for our listeners, don’t forget to join us next week. We’re going to have another exciting show with my cohost, Virginia Doran. Thank you. And take care.

3 Critical Success Factors To Grow Your Acupuncture Practice Now

Hi folks. Welcome. Thank you for joining me here today. And thank you again for the American Acupuncture Council for inviting me back for yet another Wednesday training for you guys. I really enjoy doing this and showing up and sharing this information with you, especially since many of us have not had much marketing and business tools to help us build a solid business.

Click here to download the transcript.

So before I go further, I want to ask you a couple of questions and you can put your answers to the questions below. Where are you currently in your practice? Where are you going in your practice and what kind of roadblocks are you facing in your practice? Currently, I’ll check back at the comments towards the end. I’ll respond back to you, but I just kind of want to get a sense of where everyone is and what your concerns are. So today we’re going to talk about three success factors to grow your acupuncture practice now next month and beyond.

So the thing is, is that you, as an acupuncturist have so much expertise and the world absolutely needs you right now, probably more than ever before people are suffering and they’re looking for what you have to offer, but most likely people don’t actually know that you can help them with all of these amazing things that you can help them with. So I’m sure you would agree with me that acupuncture and most patients understand that you could help them with pain, right? This is the most widely known use of the medicine to help people alleviate pain. But what about everything else that we could do on noon, support, allergies, support, improving sleep, helping families make, you know, make babies up, reducing stress, alleviate all of those things that people are looking for, but maybe they don’t know that you could do that. So most people are looking for these kinds of solutions, but they don’t even know that you could be the go-to practitioner to help them with what you can.

So how do you make more people aware of what you do and how you, what you could help with? And part of this challenge is that you need to put on your business person cap and get out there and do the work of marketing your practice, especially in these times, especially in slow times, because if you’re not out there marketing and staying in top of mind, awareness with your patients and your prospects, someone else is. So it’s really important for you to figure out how to remain and maintain and get out there and be in top of mind awareness. When people think about allergies, they think about you. When they think about immunity, they think of B, they think about you and what we’ve been sharing all of this time, all of these weeks for the AAC are the different tools and tips and strategies to give you options and marketing strategies to grow and build your practice.

Um, but before we go any further, um, before we, you know, get into marketing, you need to know that your practice, your business needs to be rooted in a solid foundation of proper messaging, business modeling, service offerings, pricing, fees, and systems. And when you have all these things in place, you’ll stand out from the friendly neighborhood competition and position yourself as the go-to acupuncturist in your community. And that’s my assumption of what you want is to be the go-to practitioner in your community. So when people think about all of these things that, um, that are going wrong with them, you come to top of mind. So today what I want to do, I want to dip into some of the waters and talk about the three success factors to help you create a solid foundation to grow your practice. And these successful, these three success factors are clarity, focus and decisions.

Okay? And these are really important pieces to help support all aspects of your marketing, all aspects of your patient communication, all aspects of you being the business entrepreneurial acupuncturist that you are. I know you did not go to school to become a business person or an entrepreneur, but you are since you’re in private practice and you own a business and you are a business person, so you’ve got to embrace these ideas. Okay. And that’s what we’re here to share with you today. So clarity, okay. Clarity is getting really clear okay. On you, your practice and how you stand out, what makes you and your practice different? Okay. So you need to ask yourself these two questions. Who are you and what do you offer? And with that, what kind of transfer w can you cause to happen with a person’s health in their life, in, in the change that you are able to offer them in what you offer in your practice and why is what you offer different smarter, better than any competing clinic.

Okay. So that the first part of really identifying who you are is really understanding, getting clear on what makes you different. Okay. Now I hope that many of you have an idea of like, what makes you different from the practitioner down the street? If not, you need to get really clear on that, that this, this, this clarity portion really will allow you to identify this little piece of marketing wisdom, this little piece of practice knowledge that allows you to differentiate yourself from the next person down the street. So my question to you would be this, if you were to think about the acupuncturist down the street or the chiropractor that has an acupuncturist on board or the chiropractor that does acupuncture, how are you different? Do you offer a different specialty? Do you offer a pain-free technique? Do you offer pain-free acupuncture? Is your clinic beautifully inviting and Zen, like, and people just walk in there and they melt because of the atmosphere and the function way.

What is it that makes you and your practice different? Okay. So who are you and what do you offer as far as transformation so that you can cause in people’s lives and in their health. Okay. That is the first part of, one of these success factors is wrapping your head around this idea. The next idea is focused, right? The idea is to get laser focused on exactly who you serve and what problems you solve. Okay. I know many of us were trained to be general practitioners, and that’s amazing because we could help with so many different conditions. And that’s, what’s so beautiful about this medicine, but you’ve got to figure out who you serve and what’s unique about you and also what, what will resonate with your clients. Okay. So with this, you’ve got to really, you know, like in, come up with the idea of getting clear on the type of person that you want to work with by getting into the mind of your perfect client and find out what resonates with them.

So for instance, if you are a fertility clinic, what would resonate with those clients that you to attract, get it? How can you get into their mind to understand what they need, what their pain points are? What, what, what, what kind of transformation they are looking for? So you can offer that and that could be unique to what you offer in your clinic. Okay. So getting focused is really coming up with who do you serve? And I know that you want to serve everybody, but here’s the same. If you serve everybody is just like taking a big net and casting out over the waters of the population and hoping that you’re going to pull everyone in. But you know, you might pull a few people in, but what you want to do is you want to get really clear, really laser focus on the specific type of person you want to work with.

Okay. And, um, and then when you do that, you can, you can focus your marketing message. You can focus your communications, you can focus your website, you can focus your branding and all of that towards that. What’s unique about you and what resonates with your clients. And the other part of getting focused is what problems do you solve? Okay. And the key to understanding what problems you solve is to understand what your patients are thinking. Right? So they’re thinking w I F T okay. So they want to know what’s in it for them or for me as a patient. Okay. And they want to know what’s in it for them. Like, like, like if they come see you, what are they getting out of it? What kind of transformation is going to be happening? So part of your, um, expertise as a business entrepreneurial acupuncturist is really getting clear around the problems that you self.

Okay. And really being able to tell someone that in 30 seconds or less, like if you were trapped in the elevator, how can you communicate who you serve? What you, you know, uh, what problems you solve and who you are and what you offer, right? Those are the three things that are super important for you to begin this process of getting really clear on growing, you know, creating the solid foundation for your practice. Let’s say, so you have clarity, you have focused. And now the next thing to really come up with is decisions, right? And meaning what marketing tools do you use, where do you find your best prospects and your new patients, and how do you build your following? Okay. These are decisions that you’re going to be making. If you’re not making them already, or if you don’t make them, when are you going to make them, right?

When are you going to start embracing this idea that you’ve got to market your practice? You need to have a deep understanding of what your patients want. You need to have an understanding of what they need and what they value. Okay. You also need to develop content and communication strategies that address the things that keep them up at night. So for instance, let’s handle, let’s go back to that fertility issue. What keeps those families up at night that are looking to make a family and make babies, right? Maybe they am I going to get pregnant and am I going to be a good parent? Um, is birth going to be easy? Um, am I going to be, you know, am I going to keep, you know, keep the baby, uh, for full term, okay. Those are things that keep them up at night. And when you can come up with those ideas, when you can, you know, get into the mind of them and figure out what it is that resonates with them, right.

Um, in the sense of, um, uh, what’s on their mind, then you can talk to that with them. Then you can share that with them, even if they’re not expressing those problems and those things that keep them up at night. Okay. You need to ask yourself a couple of questions. How can you add value before money changes, hands and, um, with your patients? Okay. So how is it that you can add more value to your clients now to your prospects and your inactive patients now, before they come in and schedule them before they come in and, um, and, and, and, and, and become a paying patient with you. And that’s important because people want to see people that like stack on all of like, like, it’s like you, over-deliver right. How can you over-deliver for your patients in that way? You know, um, how can you make it so that your marketing, your efforts, your communication strategies leave them better off than when they first came to see you.

Um, and when you are teaching them, when you’re doing a webinar or a training or anything like that, how are you teaching and giving them actionable things to make their life better? Okay. You’ve got so many tools in your arsenal of, uh, of teaching ideas and potential that you should have no lab of what you could be sharing, how you could teach and give them actionable things to make their lives better. Acupressure techniques, breathing techniques, moving technique, different seasonal recipes and things of that nature. So part of the decision making is really coming clear as to, you know, understanding what your patients want, what they need and what they value. And talking to that for them coming up with ideas on how you can communicate to that, to them. So a couple, you know, like straight up marketing tools that you, that are hyper-relevant for, um, for, for what you, what you can be doing for your patients are to make sure that you have a really strong call to action to motivate your audience.

Okay. If you’re a fertility expert, what would make someone who’s looking to start a family, raise their hand and come into your clinic. If you are a pain specialist, what can you offer them that would make them raise their hand, to motivate them to come into your clinic? Every single communication you have, every single marketing you do. Every single event needs to have a really clear, strong call to action at the end, that gets people to raise their hands said, yes, you are the practitioner for me, because you resonate with me because you know what I want, because you’ve already done the work that we’re talking about here today. So that is one of the biggest and most important things about your marketing is making sure that you have a really good, clear, and solid call to action. And a few ways to find prospects are internally and externally, right?

And online. So internally you could be doing referral drives. Uh, you could make sure that your patient education strategies are really solid and, uh, make sure that you have a plan to keep, to nurture your patients. So they would fall out of care less. And if they do fall out of care, you need to have a plan to get them back into care. So that is, you know, a few really important internal marketing strategies that you need to tap into referral drives having a communication plan and having a patient reactivation plan three really important pieces of your internal marketing, external marketing content is King these days. And you need to be out there doing social media, doing video marketing is really important. And even these days direct mail marketing is actually gaining more traction because people, no one’s doing it anymore. Once everything’s online email and newsletters, everything is online, but when you can do direct mail marketing or send a letter or postcard in the mail, it’s actually touched, they open it up, they look at it.

So it’s actually been showing that, um, that, uh, that, that direct mail marketing is actually making a little bit of a comeback in some instances. Um, so with external marketing, make sure that you have a content calendar set up, that you can be out there and in front of your audience regularly, again, talking to them about what resonates them, talking to them in, in explaining, you know, through your content and your communications, what’s in it for them. Okay. So you can really get clear and focused on your communication patterns with them and online, make sure that, um, all of, you know, all leads are gonna be pointing to your website. So make sure that your website is really dialed in. And, uh, you know, when you come up with your clarity and your focus, you need to add all of that to your website. You need to make sure that you have a really strong call to action on there that, that, that, uh, communicates with what you’re, what you’re offering in there.

And when people hit your website, they to know exactly what you do and what you offer and what is what’s in it for them within the first few seconds of landing on that page. So your website needs to be checked out and audited. And, um, and if any of you are interested in audit, um, you know, check, uh, put some, put some, um, information below the video over here. And, um, I will reach out to you and, uh, you know, just let me know that you want a website audit and I will reach out to you and we’ll get something set up for you. So, um, you know, without clarity, without focus, without decisions, your marketing strategy is always changing. Your marketing tactics are scattered, and it’s going to be exhausting because you’re going to try something. It’s not going to work. Um, you’re going to, um, you know, you’re going to get disenchanted because you’ve done marketing.

You’ve put some efforts out there and you’re not getting the type of return on that investment. Um, and your results might be inconsistent and subpar. So focusing in on these foundations of clarity, focus and decisions will help you create a better strategy, you know, more effective tactics and, and give you some consistent, reliable, um, techniques that you could be using to pull patients into your practice. So decide who you are, who your practice is not for, which is important, because if you can identify who you, you know, who you don’t want in your practice, um, then you can really focus on, you want to focus on in your practice, who you want to fill your practice up. And then, you know, when you can, you can focus on their behaviors and their traits and their likes and dislikes. And you can pull in the type of people that you really resonate with, that you want to fill your practice of. And also the last thing I want to talk about is to really simplify what you do. So

Figure out what, what, what you offer, like

Really simplify what you offer as an acupuncturist. And also come up with an idea of when you’re asked at like a cocktail party or some type of event or a networking event, or if you’re doing anything online, you know, w w you know, how you help people, you need to get really clear on your message. You need to have some laser clarity on your mission, on who you serve and why people should choose you, and what’s in it for them. And lastly, I want you to think about these four questions that you can just go away with, um, and just ponder on. Um, and if you have any questions you can reach out to me, um, at, uh, Jeffrey, jeffrey@acupuncturemediaworks.com. Um, or you can put some comments below, uh, some comments below here, and now I’ll ask, ask them, but how do you stand out from the noise and get attention?

Okay, what makes you stand out? How do you leverage the season and create marketing campaigns to result in new patients, and how do you continue to grow your audience and deepen your relationships with them, and what creative ways can you use content to get clients? Okay. So those are just four things that you should be thinking about on a regular basis. These are questions that, um, CEOs ask themselves often. And I would want you to ask this of yourself because you are essentially a CEO of your own business. So I want to remind you that you’re never alone. I am here for you. If you’ve got any questions, please reach out. Thank you again for joining me. Thank you again for the AAC for hosting me once again, so I can share some insights and wisdom and some knowledge with you. Please let me know what your thoughts are. I talked to you guys soon. Take care. Be well. Bye. Bye.

The Treatment of Anxiety and Depression with Acupuncture – Yair Maimon

Hello and welcome. I would like first of all, to thank the American Acupuncture Council to put up this lecture. And today I will focus on what I think is one of the most emerging problems we see. And we also very clearly see it in the clinic is actually the suffering on the mind level, the strength of Chinese medicine that we see a three dimensional picture of body, mind, and spirit.

Click here for the transcript.

So obviously this challenging time presents challenges to the body, but the real one, which will also stay very long time with us is the challenges to the mind and to the spirit. And from my clinical experience, Chinese medicine is one of the best medicine on earth to make change on this level and to bring back this connection of mind and spirit. So this lecture will be focused on it and we’ll focus on the diagnosis and the treatment on that level.

So let’s start with the slides. First, if we look both anxiety and depression are Western medical terms, not Chinese medicine. And I would like to start and kind of dive into the Chinese medicine dynamic, maybe by a quote of professor Yuval, Harari who say that the best defense human have against pathogen is that isolation is information. And it’s an interesting quote because more and more people around the globe are going into a solution. And there is more and more lack of communication and trust with the people who should provide us the dynamics and the, the safe safety and the safe instructions. And I think this quote more than anything else, kind of points to, uh, something very important about human life, because when we are talking about information and it is true, when you are informed with something, you can take it much more easy.

You know, even to jump from a certain place, if somebody explains you how safe it is, gives you all the safety measurements, he will jump. You know, if it’s not very high, if not, you will be afraid that something will happen. And the reason that we can explain in Chinese medicine, why it is so important, because thinking comes from the IE from the earth, it’s another forms of digestion. So if we look at thinking and earth, we can understand the same way as we, they just food with they just ideas and earth and the is, um, controlling the water, the fears. So when you understand something, you can control your fears and you can control your inner understanding. An inner wisdom brings you to the place where you can cope with everything. If the water is not control, if the fears aren’t getting to be, then there is an excit.

Then there is this fear that something will happen or something not good will happen. So this is just one part of the information part. So the more we are informed, the more we can understand deeper something, the more we can control the fear and anxiety, but isolation is actually the deepest problem because as humans, we should be in touch with other humans, we should communicate with other humans. For us. The fire is the most important part of human life and the ability to communicate, to love, to share and to have inner joy is the core essence of being a human. And this is, we know also the fire element is connected to the Shen, and this is where we house the Shannon. This is how we connect to something higher or bigger, which guides us. So their relationship of fire and water, if there is like too much fear.

And if there is isolation, you can see that there is also some disconnections from one inner self and treatment. Eventually we’ll go to that level. And it’s not just, uh, the mind, the mind and the body is connected. And the immune system is also very much related on the mind and already in PSU and 72 it’s clearly says, and it’s amazing quote, I mean, the more we go to the classic, the more we can appreciate the depth of Chinese medicine, the same zinc, cheat, the upright cheat, the immune system remains strong. Then she actually bad that she cannot invade the body is then cheat must be weak when invasion of shadier takes place. And we now today, by the way, we say almost 70% of people who will be infected by a virus, they will not be sick. And if there is a, an inner invasion of something, it means that something in the sanctuary in that privacy of the body was not working properly.

And when we go deeper into immunity and I gave another talk here about the immunity, or if you want to hear more, this lecture that they give about immunity, immune system is actually made of three layers of Cenci, which we are discussing now. And we are seeing the relationship between the health of the mind and our immune health. Also in Western medicine, there is a clear relationship between the emotions and between the psychological state and immunological state. There is psycho immunological relationship, which is clearly also seen even in biomarkers. But when we look at the immune system, we look at Cenci, we look at G and Gingy and when we wanted a good immunity, we want to have all of them connected, but definitely the Shen. She is the strongest. And this is what Sue in 72 actually tells us in an interesting way. When I was kind of diving into explaining how anxiety and depression works in the body, I called it clearing the cloud series, and this cloud is a kind of imaginary cloud, but I think it kind of help us to understand the location of the problem if somebody has anxiety or depression.

And if we do a proper acupuncture treatment, and that’s sometimes what I had from patient, you know, it’s like, you clear the cloud for me. I came in a rainy day where everything was great and I came out and it feels Sammy and I see everything and then present. So this cloud is to me, a kind of, um, metaphor to something that separates men from heaven. And when we want to understand clearly what it means, depression and anxiety in Chinese medical terms is talking about this communication of men in heaven. Communication on this level is distracted because when you feel connected, doesn’t matter, whatever happens around it, you can express and feel joy when there is a disconnection on that level. That’s when a mental state is set in like depression, anxiety, or any other, um, mental disease. So this kind of helps to show the location of heaven and heaven and Shen are located in the same territory.

And there is different points in the body, which I will talk about some of them. But if you look like the windows of heaven points or points that have the name, Shannon them, we will use two of them in this presentation. They explain why this point, why they have the name and why they’re so effective to connect again, men in heaven. And once this connection happened, then there is inner healing because eventually we allow the person to heal themselves. I mean, that acupuncture needles is just a miracle to allow this inner healing. So after treatment, this should be the situation when men and heaven are connected. When the heart is connected to something which is greater than us, it’s not on a conscious level. It’s just, we feel we are at the right places, human. And when we are disconnected, we feel alone and separated. And this is like the key questions and words that we see when there is a mental disease or when we even look at the patient.

And can we talk about anxiety is depression. As I say, it’s a very Western medical terms. And we have to understand that especially psychiatry is, is an observational medicine. I mean, you can take the blood. And so it say to somebody, you have a depression. So it’s more a list of symptoms. And there’s this five, like a list of symptoms. And it’s updated every time. If you have a number of symptoms from this list, going over two weeks, you have depression. If you have this and this symptoms, you have anxiety. So Western medicine and especially psychiatry is more looking at the behavioral disorders. And it’s quite difficult to define in Chinese medicine. To me, we are much closer to the human experience because we are looking at this three-dimensional model and we put the Shan and mind and emotion, and we define differently, uh, what will be called anxiety and depression.

Uh, by Western medicine, I gave a whole course just on taking the DSM five and breaking it up in Chinese medicine and called it the five types of depression, because you can really see all the symptoms, how they’re feeding the Chinese medicine model, because we are coming from an observational model. We observe the patient our way. We try to understand the world and the patient is immediately three dimensional. In his observation, it takes a minute to look at the patient and to know his inner state. And in psychiatry, obviously it’s close, but it’s more going into a whole list of symptoms, list me the symptoms you have, and then we can compare it to the list we have. And then we define, uh, your condition. So Chinese medicine is much more, I think, accurate in the way it understands and can treat deeper, um, probably in create even a deep healing.

So after a treatment, there is back this connection between heaven and earth. Sorry, I just went the wrong way. Here we go. Um, so just a little look, a little bit about, uh, the reason we’ll have anxiety and depression from Chinese medicine. It’s when there is a good relationship of men in heaven, the is awake and aware and present and human feel comfortable between heaven and earth. This is the human position. So when you are connected, you just feel comfortable. You just feel alive, you just feel not alone, and you feel that you are present. So when there is anxiety or depression, something in this physiological state is disrupted. As I showed, there is some disconnection on that level overall, um, briefly presenting the three models. When we look at depression, to me, it’s very easy to look at five types of depression. We won’t go into all of them.

When we look at things, [inaudible], we’re more looking at the relationship of fire and water, which has disrupted. And as you remember, we talked about the earth about thinking and also about centering. We talk about fire, about communication and join and about water of fear and gene. And this axis. This is actually the Saturday axis is the most important. When we talking about anxiety, something is distracted in this axis. When we’ll talk about stress and conflict, we can bleed the model of seven emotion and the whole movement of change the body. And then we’ll use a different set of pain points. Also looking at their psychiatric definition for depression. If you look at it from a Chinese point of view, it says depression causes a feeling of sadness and a loss of interest in activities. One enjoyed when we we’ve talking about once in joy, once the Shen was connected to the heart and you can have joy.

And then if we go on, we can see the same. If it can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems, and it can decrease the person, the ability to function at work and at home. And then if you’ll look slowly, slowly, the list, you’re welcome to open this and five, you will see how they are connected to the five types of shame and this non presence of shame that you can’t any more, be engaged in things that you were engaged before. So this is like a key idea behind it. So when you look at it, TCM reflection of this depression, eh, definition, we see this interest in activity. Once in joy, again, you will see that the heart is not connected, so you can’t enjoy life. If you look at the anxiety, it’s actually more interesting and much easier to explain. Anxiety is not the same as fear.

And this is again, we’re looking at Western medicine, but because we are using the term anxiety, I think it will help us to understand it better. So anxiety is not the same as fear, which is the response to real and immediate threat in anxiety. It’s some, it involves an expression of like a future threat. There is all the time, the fear that something will happen or may happen. So yeah, I feel this uneasiness constantly, and there is no threat at the moment. The threat is a future threat and a mode of time, imaginary threat. And then even if it’s real, it’s nothing that is happening here. And now it’s, I’m afraid that something will happen in the future. Sure. If I look at it from a, about this way, a definition from a Chinese point of view, you can see that there is a very interesting relationship between the Heartland, the kidney, and the very interest relationship.

If you look at it from a personal perspective, when the heart is connected in the relationship of how that these are good, then there is trust. The heart provides trust and the kidney provides lack of fear or feeling comfortable. And there is with your own gene, your own personality. So if you have no fear, you have trust. And when you have fear, you lose something in this basic trust in being alive, in trust in the world. So this is the local perspective. If we go two a is, if we go to a higher perspective, we see that we look at the three dimensional picture. That man is between heaven and earth, so that we have a greater trust in everything around us. We have a greater trust that even if I leave it challenging time, there is maybe some reason for it. We can trust it.

We can wait and see how nature resolve itself. It’s not all about men. It’s about men living between heaven and earth. So this trust is in a bigger and universal perspective, not just a personal one. And that’s actually, when we are balanced, we have a sense of something bigger than us and I want, so give me a case to illustrate how we are treating anxiety. And this is a manager just came recently, although is a very kind of being patient of mine years ago. He just returned back. And especially because he had the suddenly dispersed fast heart rate palpitations and of in the last few weeks, very severe insomnia. And this palpitation brought him to, it’s like a panic attack. You know, he’s afraid his heart attack. He went to the hospital to the ER few times, and this is a classic panic attack and anxiety in many patients like this.

And this number of them is a growing growing, especially now. So when I try to explain in a deeper way, what’s going on in him when your heart is not well connected, then you use this trust. So yours is setting in constant fear. I have a heart attack. My heart is failing on me. Something is wrong with my heart. So there is all the time. This fear from there’s no real dangers. You know, he had his heart checked in the ER, is this the is direct line, you know, to this company that can check even over the phone, everybody’s telling you how it is. Okay. Don’t have heart problem, but inside there’s a constant fear from a future threat. My heart will fail on me. A beautiful description was of the heart. The heritage ones is the heart beats is like a drum beating, telling all the other organs, everything is safe.

There is a constant beat, which gives you this kind of feeling of trust and safety. When the heart goes off beat, or it’s too fast, there is the sense of anxiety, by the way, it’s also the physical effects. The mind people after heart attacks also have anxiety or people who have problems in heart rhythm will develop like anxiety is the body affects the mind in his case, it was the mind affecting the body. So, uh, it was very clear that the gain is this lack of trust in, in his health. And if you look at the healing and that’s what I expect, you know, that suddenly there is no fear. Suddenly there is no danger and the points they use the team in order to achieve this deep healing were actually very simple, but the point and we’ll go and discuss them. So you’re going back to this personal experience.

So we use heart seven, which is a Firepoint, but it’s also an eras point. So remember if we look at fire earth water so hard, seven ozone, we use it very often. If you’ve gone understand the dynamic of this point, you can see how effective it is. And then keep me 25, which is called spirit storehouse or shanshan. And let’s go deeper into this point, by the way, this is a beautiful picture. Uh, there is a project I’m doing with two colleagues of mine. Butter’s coming needs, give from Poland and Ronnie yell from Israel. It’s called, uh, uh, Gates of life. And we have a painter from Poland, eh, Martina, Yankee, who is painting all the meridians. This is the painting of a Meridian of the kidney Meridian. And I’m highlighting the points. If you see the, the highest of this mountain, which is the chest area.

So we have kidney 23, 24, 25, all relating to the Shen, by the way to most interesting kidneys, all the meridians, but the kidney can easily explain this dynamic of fire and water is the only Meridian that starts on earth on the bottom of the foot. And then up in the heart it’s to do with our deepest transformation of gene, into shame. So again, fire and water is the essence of our life. And if you look at the kidney 25, especially, uh, this is like the drawing of the point itself. So, you know, you can see the storehouse and the shame we are trying to illustrate, uh, the book we are working as deep into the dynamic of the points, but the picture is a loss of bringing beauty and allowing to remember better, the points and points action. So Shane, you now it’s there with the spirit is Chang is a storage and the storage is both a place that you keep it safe, but it’s also treasury a place where you keep something vital.

So it’s where you store the spirits. So it refers to a place where you can take out of storage, but also, uh, it’s a place where when you need, you take from it, but if it’s empty, you have no storage. So both aspect of storage are relevant when we treat this point. So this is like, uh, I’m saying when there is fear stored inside, we can use this point to unlock this fear, especially actually even fear from early childhood and any patient to experiencing anxiety. Now it’s already deep in their early childhood, or it’s a place where you can take from storage when the person is very deficient after a long illness, very weak and has anxiety because of the gene deficiency. So this point works in both aspect. So again, it connects to this regional salts, uh, that can help you to sustain you through difficult time.

This is where you’re calling on the spirit after you’re exhausted and weak. And this is one of the points that has a very strong relationship between the gene exhaustion and Shan exhaustion. So again, it’s a showering treating the kidney in heart. So, um, it treats anxiety from unknown reason, like in this case and supports this gene and heart connection. I also treat acupuncture in a positive way. Remember once I treated the patient, who again, in the past that a lot of anxieties and now he’s coming after a while, but he’s already fine. So it’s more sorry. So it’s more, uh, uh, like a prevention treatment. So I use this point and he asked me, what, what do you treat me for? And I say that you live in the world and you move in the world without fears. So he looked at me and he says, this is my inner dream. And for patients with fear and anxiety, they are in a dream is to live in the world without interfere. And this point is, again, one of the Shen points that can exactly touch that level.

I’m just moving. And this is the patient, sorry, game. This is the patient. Uh, you can see his tongue, you can see the in deficiency. This is probably also one of the reasons why you have this prenatal already anxiety. And, uh, you can see in his eyes, even the fear, you know, and that’s like a normal picture taken. And here is the point skinny 25. I took a picture when he was with the points. And the other point that I use was hard seven, which you know, and here again you have from our future book, the heart Meridian and the heart seven is one of the points on it. Save all the heart channel traveling. Uh, and again, hard one. And the one is the two points, which are hidden if you think about it’s very deep. So again, we have the connection of fire and water.

So this is to do with the eh, picture and all the things you can see on the picture. And that can explain, uh, the point and the, the heart seven it’s Kunshan men and men is a door, but the door is like a passage. So you can pass from inside the outside and from outside to influence. It’s one of the places we can influence the shin in condition. It’s a Yuan point and an era’s point being in earth point, it balances again, fire and water. It’s just in the middle. Being in Yuan pointed, connects to your original cheat toward deep authenticity adult tenting art that we have. That’s why this point is so special. And we can use it both in, uh, again, in many problem with, especially in sleeping problem, memory, anxiety, exactly all the problems, uh, that he was suffering from. And another option is to go in a different way.

Um, again, especially for a sleeping problem, we can use the young child like extra Meridian, you know, in Sharon Young child meets in bladder one in the eye and that to do with opening and closing die. But interestingly enough, if we do the young child, we use bladder 62 and small intestine three. So again, we’re using bladder instead of kidney and small intestine instead of heart. So we’re using the young co-partners of the water and fire, and this is another reason why young chow can be so effective for sleep disturbances, especially this kind of sleep. So eventually we are using the, uh, fire and water to balance the in and the, the, the, uh, the earth and heaven in men and in a deep way to bring back the trust and to bring back this feeling of calmness and safety as human on earth and Chinese medicine goes far more beyond treating the mind in my understanding, and in my clinical experience, it helps people to, well, it helps people for, to grow inside, not just to fulfill their inner path in life, not to just to treat the pathologies.

And that’s the idea of treatment, not just to treat the anxiety and insomnia, but makes a person more on his path and more fulfilled in his life. So, as a final note, I would say the most magical part of acupuncture is the ability to transform, to touch heaven in a patient, alleviate the suffering and clearing the clouds and allowing healing and change. So when we use acupuncture in this respect, in this type of points, magical things are happening. And to me, this is the deep nature of Chinese medicine. So I hope you enjoyed this lecture and got some idea about how to treat and how the best way to treat, eh, and both anxiety and depression, but even beyond this, uh, to help inner healing and health. So be well, keep safe and help as many people as you can. Thank you very much for being with me. And again, thanks to the American Acupuncture Council to putting it up. So thanks and all the best.