Which Points Do You Use?

“I have back pain, why are you putting needles in my hand?”

In the acupuncture branch of Chinese Medicine, there are many different approaches to selecting points for treatment. To name a few, acupuncturists may use holograms, channel theory, the balance method, five element, or classical acupuncture point pairs or combinations to target your problem.

Holograms

holograms throughout your body. Your hand, arms, legs, abdomen, head, feet, and ear all have their own holograms of the entire body. That’s one

Channel Theory

Your entire body is interconnected and the meridians that are impaired affecting your lower back can be treated with a different channel that is traveling along your arms or your legs. Under channel theory, there are many different styles. A popular one is called The Balance Method. As the name implies, you are balancing the channels or meridians to improve the circulation throughout your body. You can call this free flowing as either nutrients, blood, qi, what have you. The basic understanding is, if anything is blocked, there will be a problem.

Five Element

In the five element theory, there are five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water that have a generating cycle and an overacting cycle. Any imbalance in one of the five elements will show manifestations of symptoms that are associated to that element.

Classical Acupuncture

Every point in the body has a name and indication of use. When paired they have a more powerful effect. The decision of which points to use truly is dependent on the acupuncturist and it can be justified in many different ways. Examples would be the four gates, LI 4 and LV 3 which are located at the hands and feet. A classical pair point to open up your entire meridians to help free flow attributed to stress and pain.

Which method are you most interested in learning about?