What if you could recover faster from any injury you might face while also building up additional strength you didn’t have before in the site of the injury? Well, with traditional Chinese medicine’s help, and my guidance to help refine your use of the acupressure technique you can!
Recently, I discussed how acupressure and the Magic Needle from traditional Chinese medicine contributed to my original rapid healing technique Moxibustion. If you’d like to read more about this or even support my book, click here for more details!
In the video above, taken 12-28-2017 two days after the break, I show how my broken arm (which was injured in the humerus area) allowed me a small range of motion up and down, while also allowing me to turn my arm in either direction, though it was certainly uncomfortable to do so. I have said before that our bodies are amazing, and one of the incredible ways we have adapted as humans is demonstrated in this video. Naturally, my body pain prevented me from having my normal range of motion in my broken arm in order to allow it to heal. However, as we know, while some instincts may have helped us survive thousands of years ago, sometimes some encouragement is needed to allow your body to enter the rapid healing process. The encouragement I’m referring to, of course, is stimulating acupoints via acupressure, moxibustion, or both depending on the treatment(s) that will work best for the injury.
In my case, I experienced all three types of bi blockages (damp bi, blood bi, and wind bi) in response to the break that occurred in my humerus area. I discussed more what this might look like in last week’s article that you can view by clicking here if you like.
Now that I determined that I was experiencing a decreased range of motion due to the pain and bi blockages, it was time to stimulate the area to cause rapid healing to go into effect, that way we can improve upon that loss in the range of motion.
The first step is to find Ashi Points (pronounced uh-sure like the popular artist) to release the energy in them, causing the pain to be reduced while strengthening the area of the injury, which in this case is my arm. At this point, you will notice that my arm was still uncomfortably sore, so I relaxed a little bit and put my arm on the table slowly. This caused my forearm to become painful, an example of the wind bi I was referring to previously.
Then it becomes time to press LI-4 or Co.4 (Colon 4) and I do so while bringing my arm inward a bit, which also helps decrease the pain so I can relax, allowing me to focus on stimulating LI-4. LI-4 is a powerful pain relief point, and as I press the muscle against the bone I can feel the pain decreasing from the uncomfortable level it was at, causing chills and releasing energy as it does so. Now that I was experiencing less pain I moved the arm back onto the table outwardly which was noticeably less difficult now that I stimulated the wonderful LI-4 acupoint.
After locating where I was stopped, I walk around using my fingers, using pressure on the particularly painful area where a break in the bone was. I did have acupuncture done in the area that didn’t fully resolve the issue, so I put pressure in the most painful area (where that break in the bone was) until the pain becomes more in the distressing area, though I could still handle it. The constant pressure causes the pain to become a sharper kind of pain though it decreased back into the uncomfortable area. When I move the position of the pressure I am applying slightly, the pain becomes distressing again as I found the sharpest, most painful spot that was also swollen. This area where the swelling is, where the sharpest most painful spot resides, is the damp bi, which is where the powerful healing Qi energy is stored. As I continue to press on this area, the energy releases, therefore decreasing my pain. This healing energy likes to move, so when it becomes blocked like this it, of course, becomes painful, which is why this stimulation of the damp bi makes the pain decrease.
With this therapy, once the pain becomes uncomfortable instead of distressing it is time to find a new area where the Qi is stuck, that way we can apply the pressure there and release the damp bi blockages everywhere they are occurring in the affected area. This will help to continue decreasing the pain until it goes from being uncomfortable, to sore, and even to nothing in some cases.
The area I was working on to start with in this video at least in regards to my arm, (not LI-4, though stimulating LI-4 did allow me to continue with stimulating my arm) as well as the upper break I experienced, which is one of the reasons stimulating it, causing the rapid healing to occur was so incredibly important. After some time of doing this therapy in the area of my arm where the damp bi was occurring, I am finally able to relax and the sensation of the flow of Qi was restored, though I was still able to find another area where damp bi was occurring and I began working on that area as well, which was the sharpest pain yet, though I was still able to manage it.
After some time of stimulating this, the pain dropped to simply being uncomfortable instead of distressing, and back up to distressing when I would wiggle the pressure in the point, though it would within seconds drop down again to just being uncomfortable, causing the energy to come down my arm. The break was about two inches though it didn’t show that in the x-rays because of the angles in which they were taken.
At this point, I sink down putting more pressure on my arm, stretching it, which was the goal at that time to start exercising that injury in that direction in order to help my body do that rapid healing. After stretching the injured arm in all sorts of directions, the pain in the lower break sharpens, and I press in the sharpest point again with mild pressure, causing the pain to ebb away as the qi flows. At this point, it’s time to give the injury a break as for acupressure since the arm, in general, was pretty sore, so it becomes a great time to exercise it. While exercising the injury was a challenge, the pain was the kind that felt good, especially since I knew it was a productive helpful pain that was going to allow me to use my arm better, and more pain-free on my end so I could continue helping my wonderful patients via acupuncture.
Now that the arm was quite sore because of all the healing that I stirred up, it became time to stimulate Co.4 again. This pain was uncomfortable, and I note in the video that I rarely have to go to distressing for pain (in LI-4) at this point after doing the initial therapy. When the pain was really bad in my shoulder the day after the break after I stopped using pain pills, the pain at that point was excruciating until I went into a perfectly still meditative state which would bring me into an uncomfortable pain level instead. Stimulating LI-4 (or Co.4) helped at that point as well, and it became even less painful than the shoulder.
Thank you for going on this journey of learning how to apply rapid healing to a complicated fracture with me, and I can’t wait to see what else we can explore together!
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Michael Turk 