I am Kathe Ana. I am a licensed acupuncturist and I am the lead acupuncturist at Heavenly Bodies Clinic. We are talking about using traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is one technique in that medical system for back pain. I want to demonstrate to you first, how it is when you treat back with an acupuncture needle and the needles are hair thin, one time use only and sterilized. They are going to be inserted in the same points. I am going to teach you a technique you can use at home without needles. So let's just demonstrate on this patient who has low back pain of long standing duration. She has several treatments already and it's about 80% relieved from her pain.
The acupuncture points, the acupuncture needles are as a very quick insertion and there they are into acupuncture points. Acupuncture points exist all up and down the spine so at any point along you spine where you have pain, you will be able to use the acupressure technique I am going to demonstrate to you. Lets take these needles out quickly now and we are going to go to the same points using the same points and you can find those points very easily. Take your thumb on either side of your spine and just measure, right there as you lay your thumbs along the spine is where you are going to find an acupuncture point.
Now that's the point on which there is a lot of energy. If you have pain there, the energy has gathered in that point and you want to move it along the spine both up and down to move it out of wherever the local area of pain is. If your local area of pain is here you just lay your thumbs along the spine and that's where you find those points. If your area of the pain is more towards your shoulder blades, again, lay your thumbs on your spine, find the point and that's where you are going to press. For this patient, we are going to concentrate on the low back.
So we put our thumbs on the either side of the spine, find the point and then press. Now, the back can take quite a bit of pressure, if your pain is severe only press hard enough that you do not create additional pain for yourself. If your pain is minor press as hard as you can and put that pressure on those points. Whats happening is your fingers are going to attract the energy in this area and press down, then slowly release and as you release your fingers, the energy is going to begin to move out of that area, then move up again you can move upwards and downwards from the area of pain, press as hard as you can.
You can do this on yourself when you are standing or sitting, just wrap your hands around your own back like this and press but on this patient if someone can help you at home, you will have a very effective treatment. Press, hold, you can hold for several seconds up to a minute you will be able to feel the pressure under your fingers change quality. You may even feel something moving there. Dont think that you are hurting someone that is the energy beginning to move out of that area to resolve the pain. Lets move down one more time and press again and you can go as far down on the sacrum as you like as far up the spine. Whatever feels good to you do it you can't hurt yourself.
Now let's use a little heat to move that pain. This is compact herb, these are available at any Traditional Chinese herbal shop. You just hold that above the skin until the skin is warmed right on those same point, again we are finding those points and putting one thumb on the either side of the spine. That's the area where you will concentrate the heat until its very, very warm of course with out burning the skin. Once the skin is warmed you can use a motion called pecking to heat, close and then far away.
So the idea of being able to help your body heal from pain in moving the energy out of the painful area where its stuck and thats whats causing the pain, there are many techniques you can use another one is called Gua Sha, use any oil form your kitchen olive oil, sesame oil, any baby oil from your bathroom, any kind of oil, we just want to make the skin in the painful area slick.
Rub it on there slightly, then take any jar lid, that is not sharp move that, again find the acupuncture point area on either side of the spine by laying your thumb down there and then draw a line and just -- Gua Sha is a scraping motion, again dont hurt yourself when you are -- if someone is doing this for you then you want to let them know, if what they are doing is painful and have them lighten up on their stoke. So the way this Gua Sha is done, shorts strokes over and over in the same spot until the skin is pink.
This Gua Sha is an excellent, excellent treatment for any kind of pain. You can use it on your jaw by scraping along the jaw pain after you have had two surgeries, for instance. If you have tendonitis, you can scrape along your elbow over and over and over once again until the skin turns pink. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, any joint pain, Carpal Tunnel you could scrape like this and just go around your entire wrist, any kind of pain responds to acupressure and Gua Sha and the same with heat stick.
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