An Update, and another unsual response

Well, last week I had the pleasure of seeing the lady with the 3rd degree burns again. She is such a nice lady. I thought she was doing better after the last treatment, but I was mistaken. It is not that she is in more pain, but she is not getting any results from the treatments. She thinks she is getting more relief from the massages. So I encouraged her to continue to get the massages and to call me if she needs my services.

When I was inserting the needles in her this week it was painful to her. That is unusual, most of the time a patient rarely feels my insertions, but not this time. I have seen it when one point will hurt for whatever reason, but with her this time every point was hurting. If you have read my blogs for a while you can guess that I did not like causing her any pain. So it was a hard treatment for both of us...

I have been thinking about what happened to cause her to experience pain at the site of the needle insertion. Of course as with all things acupuncture I can not be sure, but here is what I have been thinking.

Her burns happened over 6 decades ago, whatever damage was done has had a long time to 'settle in.' Then here I go interrupting that with electric micro-stimulation, and then top that off with the Ion-pumping cords. I know both of these forms of treatment are very effective, so it would be reasonable to presume that something changed in the area I was working with. Exactly what, or how remains to be seen. There is a part of me that tells myself that in a few weeks or months she will have a significant change. I believe that it will be a change for the better.

I spoke to one of the students at school that has a lot of experience working with different dermatological conditions. She made a creme that I gave to the patient that could help release some of the tension in her skin. Time will tell in this one as well... I will hear how she is doing through the massage therapist and I may have the pleasure of running across her at the clinic. I will update as the situation warrants.

Now for another unusual response... As if you would expect me to write about something normal???

I have been working with a gentleman that has been diagnosed with multiple mental labels including being "bi-polar" or what used to be called manic-depressive. He is an interesting individual, to be sure. I ask him how his energy is and he replies "I can light Chicago." He came to me as a referral, his allopathic doc's want to get him more stable and see if they can wean him off some of the medications he is on. It is quite an extensive list. I am glad they are thinking of trying to get him off some of them because I think of his poor over-worked liver. It is a good thing he does not drink, it would probably completely destroy his liver, instead of this slow-death he is currently causing it to experience.

Normally if a patient is on five or more med's I tend to say "no herbs for you." The potential herb-to-drug interaction is too hard to predict. But as with all things there are exceptions and I have resources. I got his complete med list and e-mailed it to my resource. My resource looked it over and my diagnosis and the herbs I wanted to put him on. He agreed with the diagnosis and herbs except one that contained "St.John's Wort" apparently there can be a interaction with St. John's Wort and some psychoactive med's. So he changed to to safe one.

Now, three months later my guy is still able to light up Chicago, New York or any other town you can think of. HMMMM, what am I not seeing here? He has told me that his body reacts backwards to most drugs he gets. Hmmmmmmm, can that happen with acupuncture?

Normally I try to give him a treatment to calm him down. He is nearly levitating when I come back in the room and is even more wired than before. That's not normal...

A few weeks ago he came in and I tried something counter-intuitive. I gave him a treatment that should have jacked his energy up like he just drank 4 espresso's. When I came back in the room he said "For the first time in all my acupuncture treatments I started to relax." He has been getting acupuncture for 5 years...

So to say that I was surprised would be an understatement. I still have not figured out what is going on with his energy,but I started to get a feel for how I can work with it. It's kind of like having the cold water come out of the hot water valve, or the "on" position of a switch being the "off" action. But it is not that simple. Or as a good friend of mine in the martial arts used to say "It's just like that, only completely different."