week #11

ACUPUNCTURE AS EFFECTIVE ENERGY MEDICINE

The more I study acupuncture, the harder I find it to explain to someone who is not learning about it. In a nutshell, it is energy medicine as it works to balance the flow of Qi in our bodies. When I try to explain it to my family (who are firm believers in western medicine), I ask them to envision a cadaver, with all its veins and organs in tack. Then I tell them that Qi is what moves everything around in a body while it is alive, so my needles would have little effect on the cadaver (I don't go into the fact that there is still Qi in everything dead or alive). But I find myself shying away from calling acupuncture "energy medicine" as it often gets pegged as "new age" medicine, when it is perhaps one of the oldest aged medicine there is.

CONCLUSIONS FROM KIRLIAN PHOTOGRAPHY

I understand it to show that living things have an aura that can be somewhat showed through photography. It seems this technology can help show people what acupunture is going for when it is trying to manipulate this aura. It is also important to note that the photography shows that auras are always changing which is so important for us to know as future doctors. When a patient comes in with similar symptoms as the week prior it does not mean that the treatment will be the same. It is possible that the last treatment was effective, but Qi shifted somewhere else causing similar discomfort. It is important for us to honor the ever changing flow of Qi.

HUMAN INTENT AS IT AFFECTS HEALTH

Last night I stumbled on an article that brought together several expert practioners of acupunture. Each was asked to locate and treat a specific point on a woman's body to help with a backache. The point of the study was to see if these experts all had the same precise spot for the specific point. Well, the outcome was surprising. Not one of the doctors put a needle in the same spot, and the furthest distance was over a foot apart from each other. The amazing part was that the pain was greatly diminished when each practioner incerted the needle and the woman could not pick one treatment as better than the other. The conclusion of the study talked about that although the points themselves are important, it was the intent of the doctor that made the results happen with the back pain. Perhaps what makes these doctors experts is their ability to find intention in every insertion.