Newsgroups: alt.med.cfs
Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 09:22:51 EST
              <CFS-L@NIHLIST.BITNET>
From:         Roger Burns <BFU@NIHCU.BITNET>
Subject:      Chinese medicine

This is another re-post from the immune discussion list regarding
Chinese Medicine.  I am not endorsing CM and I have never tried it
myself, except for acupuncture for a few weeks and I'm not sure I tried
that long enough to give it a sufficient chance.


-- Roger Burns              bfu@cu.nih.gov    bfu@nihcu.bitnet

== Forwarded Mail ==

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 16:59:49 -0800
From: cnorman@weber.ucsd.edu (Cyndi Norman)
To: KEGANRO@HUGSE1.HARVARD.EDU
Cc: immune@weber.ucsd.edu, cnorman@weber.ucsd.edu
0500 (EST) <921208201207.2020c29a@HUGSE1.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject: Chinese medicine
Reply-To: cnorman@ucsd.edu

   Date:    Tue, 8 Dec 1992 20:12:07 -0500 (EST)
   From: KEGANRO@HUGSE1.HARVARD.EDU

I've been meaning to reply to this for a while...

   I'm also interested in your experience with acupuncture.  I've been seeing
   a Chinese acupuncturist for 6 months now, twice a week.  She's very
   experienced, and has been practicing for many years.  I don't seem to feel
   anything during each treatment, but over the last few months I do seem to
   have a *bit* more energy, and a bit less extremes between my relatively
   good and bad times.  During this time I've also started taking prozac, so
   I'm not sure whether to attribute my slight improvement to that, or
   acupuncture, or just luck.  My acupuncturist says she can feel improvement
   in my pulses, but I guess I'm questioning how much it can help me, if it
   hasn't dramatically helped me after 6 months.  Have you felt any effects
   (sorry about these weird glitches where a line gets repeated -- I haven't
   been able to figure out how to keep that from happening when I receive a
   new e-mail message) from an individual treatment?  How are you able to
   determine that it's helping you?

I have improved dramatically over the last 10 months I've been getting
treatment.  I can tell because the difference is so great.  Sometimes when
I get sick (as I often do) I think I'm not getting well after all, but then
I remember specifics (daily headaches, how I felt, etc) and realise that
although I'm not yet cured, I am much much better than how I was.

I am concerned that you say you don't feel any better.  There are several
explainations for this: you are getting better but it is so gradual that
you haven't noticed the changes, your condition was so critical that it is
taking a long time (though I doubt this is the case after 6 months), your
practitioner isn't very good (in general, or with people with your
condition), or you are getting better internally but your symptoms haven't
much improved.  Of course, others on this list would add the possibility
that accupunture itself is not working...

One of things that helped me remember how I used to be is that a former
doctor (1988-90) had me keep a symptom diary.  I wrote down all my symptoms
and scored them daily on a severity scale.  I only did this a couple of
weeks (I had about 30 symptoms!) but quantifing my condition helped me
chart change [as a side note, in my PhD research, I strongly support
qualitative work, but quanitative work can often be useful too].  Since
then, I told my tale and wrote it out to many people.  I know I had daily
headaches from mid-morning until I fell asleep because I said and wrote it
down so many times.  This way, I don't think my treatment is useless when I
have a week with 3 headaches lasting 3 hours each because, for me, that is
a great improvement.  I strongly suggest that you chart your symptoms in
some way (even just a descriptive weekly report).  It really is hard to
remember how miserable you used to be.

Also, CFS is very hard to treat.  It takes a long time.  In CM, CFS is
depleted kidney qi ("chee").  You don't get that depleted unless you have
been sick for a very long time.  I can trace some of my symptoms back 20
years (I am 28 now).  I started getting really ill (in and out of doctors'
offices) about 10 years ago.  Then I got more and more symptoms.  I bet you
were sick long before you got diagnosed (or got sick enough to go to the
doctor's).  Even frequent injuries can be part of it (if a body part
"gives" or "pulls" when it shouldn't).  Injuries can even be the cause
(they can throw the body out of balance).

It is indeed possible that your pulses are improving but your symptoms
aren't improving so noticibly.  Ask your practioner how to read your own
pulse.  Learn where to take it and ask her what your pulse diagnosis is.
Take other people's pulses to feel the varience (try to take hers and other
people's in her office so she can tell you what kind they are on the spot).
_The Web that Has No Weaver_ by Ted J. Kaptchuk has a pretty decent
description of pulse taking.

What you want to learn is the following: the quality of the pulse and the
speed.  The last is really easy.  Count the number of beats per breath.  It
should always be 4 (it makes no difference if you have just exercised or
have just slept).  If it is less, you have too much cold (yin) in your
body.  If it is more, you have too much heat (yang).  I often have 5-6
beats.  When I have a migrane, it goes up to 6-7.  If you are sick (a flu
or cold with a fever and thick mucus (if any) and a sore throat), it can go
up to 8.  Since this number can change a lot, your montitoring it can help
in self-treatment.  This way you know how to alter you diet to bring your
pulse closer to normal.  Note: it is very hard to breath normally if you
are monitoring your own breaths.  Until you get the hang of it, have
someone else count your beats.  Always take your pulse in the wrist, with
the first 3 fingers next to each other.  Put one finger just under the bony
part of the wrist (under the thumb, on the vein side) and the other two
fingers in a line toward the elbow.

Now, knowing the breath to pulse ratio doesn't give you any information
beyond heat and cold.  It doesn't say where the heat/cold is, what else is
happening in the body, or if the body has both heat and cold (I have a cold
"core" but a hot pulse and lots of heat symptoms).  But it is still a very
useful piece of information.

The next thing you want to know is the quality of the pulse.  This is the
"shape" of the wave.  Mine tends to be "wiry" which means my liver meridin
is blocked (stagnated).  This feels like a tight boucing guitar string.  I
also get a pulse that is called "slippery."  This feels "like pearls in a
basin" and usually indicates mucus (or dampness) in the body.

When you have done this for a while, you can also learn other aspects of
the pulse.  Fullness vs. emptyness, floating (you can only feel it by
pressing lightly) vs. sunken (you can only feel it by pressing hard), etc.
CM practioners learn far far more complicated pulse aspects that have to do
with finger placements (theirs, not yours), etc.  You don't really need to
get into this.

If you know how to take your own pulse, you can know if you are really
getting better "in the pulses" like your acupunturist says you are.  I
think all patients (in any field of medicine or treatment) should learn as
much as they can and take control of their treatment.  It's harder with CM
because we don't learn it as kids (most of us in the West anyway) and there
aren't many books for lay people.

You should also learn how to read your tongue.  Ask your practioner for
your diagnosis.  You want to learn the places on the tongue that correspond
to each organ system, what different colors mean (red is heat), what moss
is and how to read it (the white "hair" coating the tonuge), what "pimples"
and cracks mean (the latter represent severe chronic internal illness),
etc.  In CM, the pulse is the most important form of diagnosis; the tongue
is second.  Symptoms are taken into account but you really can't diagnose
from them (although a few usually have a consistant cause).  Of course, the
same is true in Western Medicine where diagnoses are usally made from
analysis of body fluids (mostly urine and blood) and symptoms are useful
but not enough.

Again, _The Web that Has No Weaver_ is a good starter book.

My biggest concern about your note is that you say you don't feel anything
during treatment.  Do you mean you don't feel like you are getting better
or that you don't feel *anything*?  Each and every needle should be
"getting qi."  This means that you should feel the qi "working."  After the
needle goes in, the acupunturist twirls it slightly and you should feel it.
In my case, I scream right away :-) (it's not really that bad, I'm just a
wimp).  I can feel it without the twirling most of the time.  If you don't
get qi, the needle is in the wrong place or you are severely depleted
(usually seen in the elderly).  When I say that there is a huge range
between okay and great acupunturists, I don't just mean in diagnostic
ability.  The ability to get qi from a needle placement when the person has
low qi is a difficult skill.  Much to the dislike of my vocal cords (and my
acupunturist's ears), my acupunturist gets qi with every single needle.
Note: the term "get qi" is a colloquial expression not to be taken
literally.

What does getting qi feel like?  Well, it varies.  Usually it's a dull ache
around the area.  Sometimes it's a shock (like static electricity).  Other
times it can be a warm feeling (like a heat sourse just got applied).  Or
even a tickling senation.  Often you feel the qi run up or down your body
(always along the meridian).  You can also sometimes feel it in the point
with the needle and in an adjoining point or in the same point on the other
side of the body (most meridians are symetrical).  None of these feelings
are the same as the feeling of the needle itself.  In fact, you usually
can't feel the needle at all (or at least not feel pain).  Sometimes the qi
is sharp and painful like being stuck with a needle and it's hard to tell
the difference.  I often get both sensations at the same time--then the
needle "stick" fades out.  You learn to tell the difference between needle
stick and qi after a while.

If you are "feeling nothing" your practioner might not be giving you much
information; ask her to explain things to you.  You might be feeling qi but
thinking it's needle pain.  If you really feel nothing, this is not good.
Either you have a poor acupunturist or you are very very sick.

   And lastly, I was also a gymnast for many years.  Hard to believe that I
   get exhausted walking around the block when I used to warm up by running a
   few miles!  Somehow some of my weird denial/coping mechanisms have been
   around gymnastics -- I have tons of meets on videotape, and subscribe to
   Gymnast magazine, and use that to distract myself from being sick.  Somehow
   it comforts me even tho it reminds me of my Former Life.

I know what you mean.  I was never in the professional ranks; I was on my
high school team for 2 years (after years and years of lessons) then had to
quit the third year because of injuries.  In college, I took dance lessons
up to 7 hours every week.  But I started having bouts of chronic fatigue
then and stopped dancing after a few years.  My last attempt at a dance
class was almost 2 years ago.  It was for rank beginners (the only one
available) and I had a hard time.  For many years I thought of myself as
small and weak.  After visiting an old friend from college who openly
scoffed at the idea, I have been re-evaluating.  I realise now that I may
be on the small side but I was never weak.  It's just my illness that is
depleting my energy.  Until the winter rains started a month ago, I
couldn't walk up a flight of stairs (the smog makes my asthma worse).  Now
I can.  It is really easy to get stuck in the pattern of seeing your
identity as based on who you are now--or what you can or can't do now.  I
have to remember that not only was I once sicker than I am now, but I was
also once well.

   I like hearing everyone's experiences with alternative medicine,
   particularly acupuncture and Chinese herbs.  It's so difficult to figure
   out what to try when you have a chronic illness that no one seems to have
   much success treating.  I want to believe alternative practitioners who say
   they can help me, but I don't want to risk hurting myself or wasting my
   money.

I agree.  You have to be both careful and open-minded.  I tried a bunch of
"alternatives" before trying CM.  Homeopathy, clinical ecology, nystatin
(from the Candida school), etc.  Nothing worked.  CM does.

   Oh well -- time to go rest my weary body.  I'm glad these lists exist --

I'm glad you wrote...

Cyndi
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__________________________________________________________________________
"There's nothing wrong with me.  Maybe there's                Cyndi Norman
something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG)         cnorman@ucsd (bitnet)
______________________________________________ cnorman@ucsd.edu (internet)
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