The needling techniques taught in TCM focuses mainly on the amount of stimulation and whether it is tonifying, sedating of even. It is an oversimplification and is not scientific. It pays no attention to charge related phenomena, what kind of point it is or exactly what is being treated. I have seen a Chinese “expert” in China needle neck nerve roots with exactly the wrong technique and actually made the patient worse. And this was in a “demonstration”. I was shocked but not surprised. The Chinese do not know as much as they think they do.
We can break needling technique into two categories. And this comes down to what kind of point it is. “Ah Shi” points must be treated differently than “Classical” points, and this also means we need much more precise definitions of each. My definition of an “Ah Shi” point is a tender point due to some injury and locates the point of damage. This covers inflamed nerve roots or tendons, labrum, ligaments, etc. It could be a torn tendon, etc. or a broken or cracked bone. It could be an inflamed joint or a cracked, bulging or degenerative disk. Or it could be an inflamed or infected site. The tenderness just locates the site of the problem or damage. So you need to know your anatomy and physiology. And you need to know the right questions to ask to sort it out to guess what is probably going on. Do not depend on a doctor’s diagnosis to tell you what you need to know, our diagnosis has to be more detailed than theirs, especially when it comes to the location of the problem. I’ve lost count of how many diagnoses of sciatica I ran across that were not sciatica. The exact diagnosis did not matter to them because they will treat it all with the same medications – pain killers, muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatories. And your needling technique must match the problem or you could make them worse. And if the problem is a broken or cracked bone or a torn tendon etc., you do not want to needle it directly but rather you should needle either side of the break or tear and use the appropriate electro-acupuncture technique to speed healing. Were you taught any of this? Of course not since it is not TCM.
Now if the condition is inflammatory or degenerative, you have electrical charge as the primary thing to deal with. So let us look at each separately. First degeneration. It is associated with a lack of electrons so it is electro-positive. This makes perfect sense since electrons are what holds atoms (and thus molecules also) together. So without electrons, tissues will fall apart or degenerate. So, if you can supply the area with electrons you can slow or stop the degenerative process. It’s that simple. So, where can you get extra electrons? It depends on what kind of treatment you want to do. Since we are mainly talking about needling here, let us cover that first. The surface of the skin naturally holds extra electrons. In fact the voltage difference between the surface and underside of the skin is between 20 and 90mV depending on how charged up the skins capacitance is. The skin has both resistance to it and capacitance. The electrons on the surface of the skin is what gives acupuncture some of its healing effects when done properly. Here needling a point where degeneration is occurring allows the electrons on the surface of the skin to get past the resistance of the skin and get to the positively charged tissues to neutralize the positive charge and slow or stop the degeneration. Now it may be that the skin at the point does not hold enough charge to do the job. Now the arms and legs hold the most charge on the body with the hands and feet having the most. The head and spine are the least negative. Earthing charges up the skin’s capacitance. So, you could put an electrode pad on the back of the hand or top of the foot and connect it to the problem point with an an ion pumping chord to force the electrons to go only in one direction, to the problem area. Or you could use an electro-acupuncture machine to force the electrons to go where you want. Read my books to learn how to do these treatments correctly.
“Earthing” also is a way to supply the body with electrons. It actually charges up the skin’s capacitance. This can increase the current of injury. They get past the skins resistance at the sweat glands and at acupuncture points and then are attracted to any positive charge such as degeneration and free radicals. Even at sweat glands and acupuncture points, you will still have 25,000 Ohms or more resistance compared to intact skin. We evolved being “Earthed” since we walked barefooted and slept on the ground. Therefore our nervous system and bio-chemistry evolved with our connection to the earth. Now we have lost that connection to the ground wearing shoes (especially rubber or plastic soled shoes) and sleeping in beds above the ground. So we are more vulnerable to free radicals and degenerative diseases (both are electro-positive and will attract electrons witch are electro-negative) among other things. Now if you are doing Earthing to treat a degenerative condition, you must put the electrode as close to the problem as practical. Using a needle will always be more effective since you are getting past the skin’s resistance. Alternately, you could needle the point first, take it out then place the electrode pad over the point.
Now with inflammation, you have the opposite problem – too many electrons. How do I know this? Logic and experimentation. When I read in Dr. Nordenstrom’s book that negative charge attracts water in a tissue matrix (not in a bucket of water) so I though that inflammation could be associated with negative charge. Being an electrical engineer, I knew how to move electrons, so I devised a way to do electro-acupuncture that could do that. And it worked! It produced an effect similar to cortisone without the problems of cortisone. A strong anti-inflammatory effect that could be done as often as needed. Like cortisone, you had to get the needle in the right spot. The effect appears to be about the size of a dime in diameter when using an electro-acupuncture machine and running it moderate intensity for 15 minutes. Moderate intensity is to the patient’s tolerance but not painful. You can run into trouble if you run it too long or put the charge in the wrong place. I have over 30 years experience using AIEAC and it works great. You just have to do it properly. Dr. Nordenstrom actually used it to kill an inoperable lung tumor by running it so long he dried it out. The Chinese have developed a technique to kill a tumor by putting both needles in the tumor and using the electrolysis at the needles to kill the tumor. My technique takes 15 minutes per point although you can run it a bit longer on the arms or legs. Can you guess why? The distribution of charge on the skin of course. Now you can get an anti-inflammation effect with just a needle if you do it right. Just needle shallower that you normally would. You will then attract the fluids of inflammation to the needle where they can then be carried away by normal processes of the flow pf extracellular fluid in the lymphatics and acupuncture meridians. If you needle too deeply, you run the risk of supplying extra electrons to the area and making things worse even if you avoid doing more damage as well.
For “Classical” points which I define as points that are connected to some part or function of the body through the nervous system. Their sensitivity is due to a “stress response” that is sent to the sympathetic nerve ending of the point which is located just under the skin. This makes the point more tender when palpated and more electrically active so it is more easily found with a point locator. The parasympathetic nerve ending at the point is located deeper in the muscle and is what we are usually stimulating when we needle a point. Here needling sensation is generally necessary to get the effect the point is known for. The stronger the stimulation, the stronger the effect up to a point. Here we are typically stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. Pain stimulates the sympathetic nervous system and is counterproductive. The only point I regularly needle the sympathetic nerve ending at the point is DU20. I get a better “raising of the yang” effect doing that. That is how I wake up a patient who has gotten too strong an endorphin effect from treating pain and would be a danger on the road otherwise. The effect is almost immediate. Their eyes pop open and they feel much more alert and awake.
For classical points, just getting qi when you put the needle in is usually enough. For patients who are more yang or have a high pain tolerance, they may need more stimulation. There are several ways you can achieve that. You can add more points or add ear points like the 5 needle protocol. Or you can get qi again when you take the needles out or during the treatment. Sometimes you may have to use a thicker needle in order to have them feel it st all. I have had one patient I had to do all of the above. But he felt great after every treatment. Here the focus is on getting sensation. It does not matter so much how as long as you do not cause pain. There is one technique where you twist the needle a lot to get the tissues to wrap around the needle. Especially if you only twist in one direction. This usually causes a “stuck needle”.
Now for your very sensitive patients, they probably will feel it when you first tap the needle in (when using an insertion tube). Here you are stimulating the sympathetic nerve ending but you will still get a parasympathetic effect if you stop there. That has been my experience. It just seems to be the way we are wired. Just something else no one talks about.
Now using moxa to treat has its own effects. You are stimulating heat receptors in this case which has its own effects. Generally you will relax tight muscles and dilate blood vessels. Whereas cold has the opposite effect. Heat can make inflammation worse whereas cold helps with inflammation. Cold, causes blood vessels to contract, restricting blood flow so can in the long run can impair healing. Heat at certain acupuncture points have their own effects. This is usually covered in the traditional function of points.
Now needling the belly of a muscle will relax it due to the needle stimulating the formation of structured water. Heat relaxes a muscle by stimulating the formation of structured water as well (see the section on structured water for a more detailed explanation). Heat also causes growth of structured water and is why heat relaxes muscles.
There is one condition I have run across where heat helps when you would not expect it to. That is Lateral Epicondylitis. Here using heat on the muscles of the lateral forearm relax thee muscles thus lessening the pull on the tendon that rubs against the bone. Needling LI4, 10 and SJ5, 9 also relax the muscles. Of course you also have to treat the 2 or 3 tender spots where the tendon actually rubs against the bone. I usually use my Anti-Inflammation Electro-Acupuncture (AIEAC) on those points. Alternatively, you could use an electrode pad after needling the points on the elbow. In Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) they use polarized waveforms to treat inflamed nerve roots and use electrodes and not needles finding it worked better than an alternating waveform. So they found that moving charge worked for inflammation too. I ave only had the chance to try it once so far and it did work just about as good (at least most of the time) and take a little less time (30 minutes instead of 45 minutes). I would also needle the points first to get past the skins resistance. Again, were you taught any of this in school? I seriously doubt it. Your teacher was only taught TCM too. My views are new but perfectly sensible. They are based on others research as well as my own and over 32 years in practice. It took me 26 years to put together TCM with modern science and make a sensible whole. It then took me another 4 years to put it all into book form and get my first book published. There is a lot to learn that you were not taught in school that will make you a much better practitioner. Much of it is contained on this website.
Now just like you, I was taught needling techniques such as lifting and thrusting, twisting or rotating, scraping, plucking and so on. They all stimulate the nervous system. But their classification as tonifying or sedating or even is misleading. The difference in these techniques is the amount of stimulus they give to the nervous system. The amount of stimulation a person needs depends on the state of their nervous system. The effect depends on the effects of the points needled. It is not the needling technique that is tonifying or sedating but the treatment as a whole. A person can be deficient and have a high pain threshold. A light treatment technique may be said to be tonifying but will not be as effective as a stronger needling technique. Do you understand? That is the difference between TCM and Scientific Acupuncture. Knowing how things work, we do things in the way to make our treatments work more consistently and effectively. The scientific way.
Now recently, I have come up with yet another useful needling technique. This one is for treating infections. This will work best for skin infections. A fellow acupuncturist asked me one day if my AIEAC treatment would work for infections as well since they are both related to heat. I did not think so but it got me thinking about it. Then one day I was thinking about how any pathogen infects a cell. II then realized that the pathogen must first attach itself to the cell membrane. That’s when I realized that is essentially a charge-related phenomenon that I could easily affect with acupuncture. I realized that I, could stop the spread of any infection (even antibiotic-resistant ones) by simply putting needles all arounf the area of infection (typically just past the area of redness thet typically demarks the area of infection). Let me explain how this would work. When you put an acupuncture needle in the body ANYWHERE, you will get electrons from the surface of the skin to go through the needle to collect under the skin. Being negatively charged, they will be attracted to positive charges on the surface of the cell and pathogen. That will block half of the attractive force between the two. Now acupuncture needles are made of surgical stainless steel. That is a hydrophilic surface. That means that when it comes in contact with water (here, extracellular fluid) it will automatically make structured water around the needle one layer at a time. Driven by infrared energy |(heat) which is ever=present in the body. When structured water (H3O2)is made, a hydrogen ion is lost which goes into the extracellular fluid, From there it is attracted to the negative charges on the surface of the cell or pathogen or attaches to a water molecule to make H3O.It usually takes about 15 minutes for the creation and destruction forces in the making of structured water to balance out so the needles should be left in a minimum of 15 minutes. The needled should be placed 1/8-1/4 inch from the red area and about 1/4-1/2 inch apart.This will stop the electrostatic forces from attracting the pathogen to the cell.Simple yet effective. Im surprised noone thought of this before. It is obviously one of the reasons infections from acupuncture are almost unheard of.
#acupuncture #electro-acupuncture #acupuncture needling techniques