introduction and thoughts

[Guest guest]

Hello, My name is Brian Beard. I'm new to this group and a recent

graduate of acupuncture school. I am just at the beginning of trying

to figure out what in the world I'm going to do now after school is

done and national exams and such.

 

There has been alot of discussion about whether acupuncture can harm

a patient if used incorrectly even if that is not your intent to do

so. During my education at school, I've had the experience of

patients getting worse after a treatment when I certainly did not

intend that to happen. This actually happened to one patient who had

a skin rash that was related to sexual abuse from years earlier. I

attributed it to trying to do too powerful a treatment when the

patient wasn't ready for it, and perhaps I was trying to push the

patient into getting better more than they were willing to do. There

were no herbs involved. So this is somewhat different in that the

root treatment (from my perspective and choice of), or attempt at it

made the patient worse because they weren't ready to move, and a

symptom treatment might have been more appropriate.

 

I've also had the experience of myself getting worse after giving a

treatment. The only time that I was aware of this happening was

after treating someone for left knee pain. The patient left with no

knee pain after the treatment, but I had left knee pain out of the

blue that started immediately after the treatment and lasted for a

few days. This was also when I was continually throwing off an

invasion of some sort and my wei qi was certainly not at it's best.

And I've also had massages where I felt worse afterwards.

 

I think being a health care pratictioner for many invites the

awareness of good and evil for treating, for either could be used at

any time. It is also easy to try and ignore or downplay the

existence of the dark side of medicine. For those involved in the

martial arts this becomes apparent as many cavity strikes use the

knowledge of acupuncture points to incapacitate the opponent. These

employ harm to a given area that an appropriate needle treatment

would provide benefit to. It's all a matter of degree. When does

tickling stop and pain begin? I've also known of people who practice

qigong incorrectly and get permanently shen disturbed from it. And

I've also known people who can brush a couple of points on me with

their fingers and every muscle in my body will test weak.

 

For me personally, I think that anything that can provide a positive

benefit must also be able to provide harm as well, because the

positive doesn't exist without the negative. This perspective

however does seem to vary quite alot from person to person and

probably has alot to do with their own experiences. But the very

nature of this medicine is to not have any right or wrong way of

doing it, only the way that happens to work for the person performing

it.

 

--brian