Treating a physical (jaw ache) and internal (bloating) condition at the same time is a harder task. As the patient has not been suffering with the symptoms of bloating for long, it is quicker to treat.
Upon inspection of the tongue, which every acupuncturist will ask you to show when dealing with an internal condition, it revealed that the patients fluids were not moving, which was causing her to feel bloated.
Assessment of the patients jaw and the muscles around the area were checked and they all showed strong, which indicates that there is an imbalance with the blood in the area.
Treatment of Acupuncture, physical therapy and massage of the back, neck and shoulders relieved the patient of her symptoms.
Alarm points are also checked to highlight the patients overall well being.
In this instance, the left kidney alarm point, right lung and right triple warmer were all active.
The acupuncture points used to eliminate symptoms and to start bringing the body into balance were:
Lung 6 & 6.5 Activating the lung channel will enhance its functioning of carrying oxygen around the body via the red blood cells assisting with the movement of the trapped fluid.
Kidney 3/4/9 The kidneys move the fluid around the body. Activating this channel will change the condition of the tongue and ease the bloating.
The stomach and large intestine channels run through the jaw. The lung channel is the yin to the large intestine channel. As the lung channel has already been made active to deal with the bloating we don’t want to cause an overload of energetic messages by activating both channels.
Through our palpation of the ICV Value we know that the value has been flipped open and discover that part of the patients job today was making ice cream and checking it was edible, giving us reason to support the spleen channel, which regulates blood sugar. The spleen is the yin to the stomach which is yang. Assisting the spleen we have in effect helped the stomach, the channel which also runs through the jaw.
Spleen 6/8/9 Your spleen, which the west refer to as the pancreas, produces insulin and glucagon, two hormones that regulate sugar levels in your blood.
Reassessment of the alarm points confirms the body is in balance. The patient is asked and there is no pain in the jaw and the stomach feels less bloated.
The patient is left to rest for 15 minutes.
After removing the acupuncture the liver, stomach, spleen, large intestine, kidneys and ICV value are all given attention. The sound of the kidneys and the liver filtering is reassuring as it implies that the fluid is moving and the bloating will be reduced.
A balance of the head, pelvis and feet support the internal condition.
Please note, the person in the picture is not the patient with the symptoms listed. This picture is to support the understanding of this case.
Trigger point therapy of the jaw enhances the healing effect for the patient.
The patient leaves feeling no pain in her jaw and no bloating in her stomach and ready for a symptom free weekend. Yay!
References: https://patient.info/health/cough-leaflet/features/the-respiratory-system
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/factfiles/pancreas/pancreas.shtml
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