Suffering from Chronic Back Pain? These People are Healed and No Painkiller is Involved | 饱受长期腰痛的困扰？

These days we got two patients, both are very interesting cases. Coincidentally they both suffered from chronic back pain, and both had sought for a cure everywhere without success. Here I would like to share to you how I treated them:

The first patient is a female patient. She had back pain for decades. She came in and I immediately noticed the dim complexion on her face. She told me she had never stopped treatment. She had seen many famous doctors and unfortunately the pain remained the same. She had insomnia for decades too. She would wake up very easily in the night and could not sleep after woke up. Then I checked her up. Her pulse was deep and uneven. Her tongue was small and dark. From her neck to waist, the muscle on the sides were almost as stiff as wood board, and there were some irregular pain points on her back too. According to the principle that “chronic problems usually root in the kidney and meridian”, I decided to strengthen the kidney and facilitate the blood flow, as well as the dredge the meridians---by piercing the taixi, kunlun, shenyu, geyu, xinyu, fengchi, and houxi points. At the same time I applied blooding letting puncture on the kunlun, weizhong, and geyu points. I thought the patient would recover soon according to my past experience, but she did not get better after several treatments. I thought carefully and determined that the patient had weak body constitution because of the chronic problems. Even there is congestion, the treatment for her should still concentrate on strengthening the weakness, while the releasing the excess (that blockades the meridians) can only be the second purpose. Therefore, I changed the piercing points to taixin, shenhui, and replaced blood-letting puncture with plum blossom needle （“mei hua zhen”) puncture.

Fig: the Plum Flower Needle (“mei hua zhen” )

In addition I also gave her the the herbal medicine xue fu zhu yu wan for intake. The result was fascinating---her muscles on the back were effectively softened after the first treatment, and her decades-old insomnia went away after a week. After ten treatments her back pain largely disappeared.

The second patient was a senior. He lived in Richmond and everyday she spent more than 1.5 hours to get to my clinic, which was pretty hard for her. Her chronic back pain was so serious that she always felt there was something pressing against her back all the time. Her legs were heavy and could not walk very fast, too. She told me that she had herniated discs at a young age. She was of heavy build for her age, but her face was pale. She had seen many doctors, including acupuncturist, physical therapist, and chiropractor, but the pain never became less. Besides the pain, she also had problems such as bad memory and low energy. The muscles on her neck, chest and waist were obviously swollen, and the muscles were also wood-like hard. In addition she had pain points on the right side of her buttock, on the back of her thigh and her calf. Her pulse was sunken and there were teeth marks on her tongue. I diagnosed her as coldness in the yang and weak yang in the kidney. Because she does not like to take herbal medicine, I planned her treatment mainly on needle piercing. The main points were chosen as: jinmen, dazhui, fengchi, pihui, shenyu, dachangyu. I also chose the points of chengshan, dazhui, gaomang, and yaoyu to apply blood-letting puncture. After the first treatment the patient started to feel relaxed, and her situation was healed up to 80% after ten treatments.

You may ask, “Why do you want to talk about these chronic and extremely serious back pain problems?” Well, here are what i thought: first, this kind of long-term, hard-to-heal back pain can cripple your health seriously; second, many patients of this kind of problem take painkillers all the time without knowing that the acupuncture can also be a good way; third, acupuncture can have only have good results with careful analysis.

At last, I would to say sincere thanks to you---my patients who trust me so much and come to see me for so much time.

Wish you all good health!

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这几天来了两个很有意思的病人。他们不约而同地都患有长期的腰痛，而且经过多方医治无效。这里我想跟大家分享一下我的治疗过程：

第一位病人

中年女性病人，患腰痛几十年。病人求诊时，面色发黑无光泽。她自诉一直没有停止治疗。看过很多名医，却一直没有任何进展。她的失眠症状也持续几十年，表现为夜间易醒，醒后不能入睡，脉沉涩，舌小黯。查体时发现从颈至腰两侧肌肉紧张如同木板，并有多处不典型痛点。考虑到“病久必入肾如络”的理论，我决定运用补肾活血通络的治疗原则，针刺取太溪，昆仑，肾俞，膈俞，心俞，风池，后溪等为主穴，并刺络昆仑，委中，膈俞等穴位。根据以往的经验，我本以为病人很快会见效，但是几次治疗后却不见任何好转。经过仔细思考后，我判断病人是久病而体虚。虽然身体有淤血的存在还是应该以补虚为主，泻实为辅。因此，针刺的主穴改为太溪，肾会，并用梅花针代替刺络，外加服用血府逐淤丸。病人在第一次治疗后肌肉僵硬明显缓解，在一周后病人几十年的失眠消失了。在十次治疗后，腰痛的症状就基本消失了。

第二位病人

这位是老年病人，每次从列治文坐车来看病，来回需要三个小时，也实在是难为她。她长期腰痛，总感觉有一个东西压在背上，两腿也很沉重。这位老人年轻时就患有腰椎间盘突出症。她体格健壮，面色发白。多年来她看遍了各科医生，有针灸师，物理治疗师，正脊师，但疼痛从没有缓解过。除了疼痛外，病人还有健忘，精力不足等症状。病人后背的表现为颈、胸、腰部肌肉明显肿胀，也是硬板一样。右侧臀部，大腿中间及小腿肚上也有明显压痛。舌头有齿痕，脉沉。诊断为寒袭太阳、肾阳虚。由于病人不喜欢服用中药，故只以针刺为主。主穴为：金门，大椎，风池，脾会，肾俞，大肠俞。另外再取：承山，大椎，膏盲，腰俞刺络。第一次治疗后，病人就开心的表示感觉身体轻松。经过十余次治疗，这位病人的症状已基本好了八成了。