Working the Other Side of the Coin...

By Steven

The other side of the coin in the warrior arts, from martial pursuits, is to practice healing arts. I'm going to be working on this a lot more in days to come.

I'm doing a lot of Qigong these days. More than I have in years. And it is good.

I am starting to work on learning some acupressure/energywork and reflexology. My wife has a hypothyroid condition, and suffers from a lot of pain in her right ankle (from when it fractured in three places some years ago), and in her right hip (courtesy of a mild-to-moderate hit-and-run incident many years ago). She's also been having a problem with sensations of extreme heat in her feet for a couple or three years. Painfully hot. At the same time, other sensations in the soles of her feet have felt muted.

I've been compiling information from books we own (that have mostly been gathering dust) and decided to try out some of their suggestions. So...

I worked on the acupressure points Kidney 3 and Spleen 5, and did some reflexology work on her feet. I concentrated, based on what I knew about her conditions and the feedback she was giving me, on the areas of her feet that represent her thyroid, hips, and sciatic nerve. We also discovered that she was reacting to the areas for the solar plexus and eyes, so I added those to the list. Lastly, I worked on her Lung 1 acupressure points, since I've been experiencing benefit from that for myself. It seemed prudent, at that point, to say 'enough' for today.

We evaluated the results:

• Her ankle went from a 6.5-7.0 (on the pain scale, and she is pretty fair in her use of it) and it went to a 3.5-4.0.
• Her hip/back went from negligible at rest/9.0 while standing for extended periods to essentially pain free, at least for the moment.
• The heat issue with her feet, which I had not set out to address went from hot to cool, and the sensations feel less muted/more normal. This was an inadvertant and unexpected benefit.
• She feels more alert, and relaxed. Anxiety levels, which have been a problem, are decreased.
• She's had a twitch in her left eyelid for a couple of months. It has stopped, at least for the moment.
• The work with Lung 1 caused her shoulders to drop and made breathing easier and more relaxed.

I fully expect for these issues to require frequent follow-up, but am excited to see how things progress with time. I noticed, while doing the reflexology, that the areas being worked often gave a crackling sensation under my hands and fingers...like the shrinkwrap-sort of material they put around cigarette packs. Eventually that feeling would abate, and I'd move on to another spot.

I'm going to try and keep a record of what I (and we) are doing. I think we'll be better able to track what works, and what doesn't. We have a lot more health issues and changes we are going to be addressing over the next year. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

FOLLOW-UP: At 4 to 5 hours past the event, hip and back pain when standing for a prolonged period rates a 5.5-6.0, which is still an improvement over what it was before. I'm hoping that with frequent repeats, the chronic pain will improve on a more permanent basis.

18 December: My wife's right foot and ankle are routinely swollen, and full ROM has been missing in ankle, foot and toes since the fractures "healed". Upon arising this morning (and waking up...lol), my wife noted that there was little, if any, swelling in her ankle/foot, and she had much increased ROM. This is really exciting, and gives me hope that with a steady Tx plan using these methods, and a few others, we may be able to relieve many of her symptoms without having to resort to surgery, which was what we've feared for some time. She is not pain-free, but it has not been as bad as before, so far. The only real side effect we're seeing is that the soles of her feet are a bit tender from my working on them, but it isn't too bad.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not advocating that you, the reader, follow any of the treatments/modalities I am recording. These are not 'recommendations', but 'observations'. Any form of medical treatment should be done under the supervision of trained professionals. Your potentially poor and/or harmful choices are your own, as are mine...