So many times I heard from patients that they had tried acupuncture before; however, it only felt good but their condition wasn’t improving too much. The treatment should work all the time but different intensity would give different result. If the condition is chronic due to repetitive work over long period of time, then the treatment should be stronger to improve the stagnation and increase the blood circulation within the muscles before acupuncture needles are inserted. To remove stagnation and increase the circulation, I always use moving cupping. Moving cupping is a combination of cupping and gua sha. Oil is used to help the cup slides easily on the skin instead of staying stationary in one spot like stationary cupping. I still use stationary but I often use moving cupping more because moving cupping can actually increase the blood circulation faster and stronger. Hence, the effect of treatment overall would last longer. To prove that my treatment approach is achieving the optimal result, an experiment was done to compare the circulation on the back of a patient using stationary cupping on one side and moving cupping on the other side. Both techniques were done within 10seconds. Using the laser Doppler to measure the circulation on skin before and after the cupping on four (4) locations on each side of the back on the Urinary Bladder Meridian. The circulation of patient was measured immediately after the cupping, the result showed that the circulation of muscle at the stationary site remained the same or increased doubled; while the circulation of the muscle at the moving site increased double (2x) to pentadruple (5x). Moving cupping is needed for those patients, who have chronic hard tight muscle, before receiving acupuncture treatments. Since the muscle has been tight for too long, a strong stimulation or treatment is needed to resolve the stagnation and improve circulation. Moving cupping is often sensitive to some patients. The tighter the muscles the more pain the patient would feel. Often time, the pain is sharp because blood within the muscle is not circulating. The sharp pain is similar to experiencing bruising pain continuously. Furthermore, patients often comment that they feel their backs are lighter and shoulders are loosen up after the treatments. The first moving cupping will be the most painful one. As the patient keeps getting moving cupping, the circulation is improved faster; therefore, patients feel less to no pain at all during the treatment.
With the same patient that the cupping treatment was done on, we also tested to see how effective to have needle inserted to tight muscle by itself. Laser Doppler was also used to measure the circulation on the right shoulder, where GB 21 is located. A needle inserted onto the location near by GB21, circulation remained the same even though patient mentioned that she felt good. As I started to twirl the needle with my fingers the circulation is increasing and keep increasing.
These two results have proved that my treatment approach benefits patients more, they will recover faster and the effect of treatment overall lasts longer.
