Chinese Medicine

Since my radiation therapy for prostate cancer in 2014, I’ve had sciatic pain, which is disabling at times. I’ve been unable to work like I used to. I can’t run. It interferes with my normal activities of daily living and keeps me from sleeping. I’ve also been nursing a strained right shoulder for over two years due to lots of push-ups and punching. The pain is bad enough I often cannot find a comfortable position to lie down in and sleep. It wakes me up at night, too.

Last week I had my first ever acupuncture treatments. They lasted about half an hour each, one session each day for three days in a row. The pain resolved immediately. Although occasionally it makes a mild reappearance, I’m pretty much pain-free for the first time in two and a half years. I can run again. I can sleep.

How did the needles to this? I was expecting the treatment to fail. (Most of the people I know who have had acupuncture were disappointed in the results.) Because my training is in standard Western medical science, I don’t buy the whole Chinese system of “chi” and of “meridians” named after organs, or balancing elements like fire, earth, and water. I have no framework for that. I’m sure there must be an explanation that works within my current understanding of human physiology.

The needling could work through reflexes. They were inserted into (among other places) my knee and ankle joints. Perhaps that painful stimulation altered a central nervous pain threshold in my brain. (BTW, the needles were painful, but less so than getting a shot. There is some residual pain where the needles were, too, but I was warned about that and it is resolving.) If my reflex theory is valid, perhaps I could get the same results by just massaging the knees and ankles.

I’m supposed to get a series of treatments to make sure the therapy holds, but I won’t be able to go back for a few weeks. I’m looking forward (if you can believe it) to the pain returning so I can run the experiment on myself.

The therapist (who is not a doctor, just a layman trained and licensed in Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM) spent a lot of time feeling my pulse. In fact, he is considered a world authority on pulse diagnosis (Robert Doane, who works out of Poulsbo, Washington). He based a 4-6-week herbal regimen on pulse diagnosis, so now I’m intensely curious in what feeling the pulse can tell one about the entire body.

The TCM system is very detailed about what can be felt and what it means, and I’m skeptical about most of it. But the pulse can inform one about the heart. The speed, volume, and power of the pulse vary in many ways, some of which we use in Western medicine to diagnose illness. Other organ systems like the kidneys, gut, and bone marrow may influence blood volume and viscosity. The tension within the system is maintained by the autonomic nervous system, which is sensitive to both nervous and chemical input from other systems.

So now I’m exploring these questions:

How does acupuncture work to relieve pain?

And what can the character of the pulse tell one about health?

My therapist seemed to think my heart needs the support of a formula of Chinese herbs and as a result I will be feeling much better – more energy, better sleep, clearer thinking – within two weeks. If I don’t, he’ll stop the treatment and refund the unused money for the herbs. That’s as fair as I would expect from a healthcare practitioner with integrity.