ok, so if acupuncture, cupping and moxibustion don’t seem to be working what’s the next step?  well, it all depends on the patient’s specific condition (of course) so there’s no pat answer.  

sometimes scraping (guasha) works, sometimes it doesn’t.

sometimes electrical stimulation works, sometimes it doesn’t.

sometimes DC electrical point stimulation works, sometimes it doesn’t.

sometimes myofascial trigger point therapy works, sometimes it doesn’t.

sometimes cryospray works, sometimes it doesn’t.

 

it all boils down to what seems to ‘resonate’ best with the patient.  sometimes patients will know what will work and what won’t.  i may bring up the idea of trigger point work vs. scraping and they may react with ‘oh, i think that the scraping sounds great and is what i need’ and it works great for them, while a different patient with similar symptoms may have no response to scraping, but will react beautifully with e-stim.

 

oh, by the way, here is a brief description of the above modalities, in case you had any questions.

scraping--is taking a coin, the edge of a teacup, or an animal horn and scraping it on the skin that has been oiled.  there will be a reaction that looks like a severe rash and the area may be tender afterwards, but nothing beats this procedure in the early stages of a cold.

electrical stimulation--is inserting at least two needles into the affected area but separated by a distance, attaching electrodes to the needles and turning on the stimulator.  the patient may feel an involuntary ‘twitching’ of their muscles.  in this technique, there must be at least two needles to complete the circuit.  the idea of this is to fatigue the muscles and reset their length receptors.  i can discuss this more in detail later if i get any requests to.

DC electrical point stimulation--is a technique that doesn’t involve needles.  it is the use of a ‘wand’ with a tip that resembles a ballpoint pen.  this tip is put onto acupuncture points and a button is pressed that will send DC current into the point.  only one point is stimulated at a time, and the circuit is completed by skin to skin contact between patient and acupuncturist somewhere.  usually, it is enough for my knuckle to rest on the patient while holding the wand with the same hand.

myofascial trigger point therapy--this is what most people call deep tissue massage.  it is finding the ‘knots’ and resolving them.  it isn’t the most comfortable of massage techniques, but it is very effective.

cryospray--this is a technique where a refrigerant is sprayed on the muscle that is tight or is in pain which is then put into a stretch.  the idea of this is similar to myofascial trigger point therapy, but it works much faster and there is no real need to be very precise.  by that, i mean that you don’t have to develop as much sensitivity in your fingers to find the trigger points because you are dealing with larger entities.