Tan/Chen/Tung styles, etc.

[Guest guest]

Hello all:

 

As one of those shallow, successful practitioners who use the T/C/T

methods for treating pain, I think it may be helpful to think about the

fact that what we call acupuncture is actually not only heterogeneous in

practice, but heterogeneous in effect. Different styles may be accessing

different regulatory mechanisms of the body. T/C/T, in my own belief, is

basically a CNT stimulatory system taking advantage of neural maps that

exist probably as a byproduct of embryonic development, and whose

signals may be spinal-cord mediated (i.e. never reaching the brain) for

their instantaneous effects. Anyone who has palpated a seriously

subluxated vertebra, done on specific point distally on the opposite

side, and then gone back to find the vertebra now in line - a whole two

seconds later or less - cannot believe in acupuncture, at least this

acupuncture, as a placebo. And then once you realize that this thing you

did didn't affect any other of the vertebrae that are still subluxated,

and that each of those will respond only to another specific point and

no other, can believe that the meridian system is not real - */if, at a

minimum, only for pain*.

 

/And I think it was the Yellow Emperor who told us to needle the

opposite side!

 

So those who start from a theory point of view but who have no practical

experience in experimenting with meridian-based styles seriously ought

to reconsider whether they have any ground from which to criticize those

of us who use meridians in a connected way like the classics say they

are, and who follow the advice of the original acupuncture sage, who get

immediate results, and who have a large and devoted practice made up of

people who could not get good results elsewhere.

 

But -- BUT! -- this still doesn't mean this system is exclusive. I

personally like local needling better for many cases of knee OA ( " bi "

for the anti-biomedicine crowd), CTS (more " bi " ), plantar fascitis ( " bi "

again), and sometimes for other types of tendonitis ( " bi bi bi " ). Though

I have seen good results in many cases with T/C/T methods, often I have

seen better results with local needling or a combination, and this may

have to do more with the connective-tissue issues involved and the

effect of direct needling on the connective tissue. That said, in all

other cases of muskuloskeletal pain, T/C/T I have found to be 1)

quicker, 2) more comfortable to needle, 3) less likely to cause

worsening, and 4) a more complete reduction of pain.

 

But I am a no-BS, empirical kind of guy who finished my MAOM with no

belief in acupuncture because the reults I saw in clinic were so lousy,

and because no one was able to help me, in all sorts of styles, with my

own relatively uncomplicated back pain. Not until I did the T/C/T styles

a full 6 years into my practice did I see the types of results that made

me unequivocally believe in acupuncture as a specific cure, not as

merely a nonspecific way of triggering a parasympathetic healing

response regardless of point choice.

 

So - in researching acupuncture, I think meridian-based approaches for

pain may produce different results than, say, TCM or Kiiko or Worsley,

and that is OK. For example, maybe we will find that T/C/T leaves

patients less spiritually uplifted, or less likely to become immortal,

or leaves their qi aura all screwy, and that all of this can be remedied

by some other style. I remain agnostic, but I'd love to find out.

 

But we need to first make the research community know that acupuncture

is heterogenous, and that to make any blank statements about results, or

even a mechanism, for one particular school does not necessarily hold

across all forms of acupuncture. Indeed, by comparing multiple styles,

we may learn a lot more, and learn it more quickly, than collapsing the

5000 years of our history into one brand of practice (and probably a

watered-down version at that). And I think by refusing to call what is

being used in research " acupuncture " but instead calling it

" experimental dry needling " , there won't be any more confusion. Because

I think we all have our doubts that what is being done in these big

research studies is acupuncture as actually practiced.

 

Ben Hawes, L.Ac.

//

 

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[Guest guest]

Hi Ben and all:

 

" I personally like local needling better for many cases of knee OA ( " bi " for the

anti-biomedicine crowd) "

 

Thank you, sir.

 

Hugo

 

 

________________________________

Hugo Ramiro

http://middlemedicine.wordpress.com

http://www.chinesemedicaltherapies.org