Ankylosing spondylitis
forum post
My patient is a 49 year old male who has had a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis for 19 years. He has a classic "bamboo spine" appearnace of his lumbar spine on x-ray. He has had no benefit from any alllopathic treatments to date. On TCM Tongue exam he has tooth indentations on the right side of his tongue (qi deficiency in the liver meridian) and yin excess in the spleen and stomach area. On Pulse exam he has deficient pulses in all teh meridians in his left pulse (heart, liver, gall bladder, kidney and small intestine). He also has tinnitus.
I treated him with needles placed at SP6, ST36, TF4 ( for the tinnitus) and GB2. After one treatment his tinnitus was 50% improved and his ability to flex forward at the waist placed his fingertips 2 inches closer to teh floor. I remember that the rheumatoid syndromes are related to Cold being trapped in the deep layers of the body. Any suggestions? Has anyone treated such patients? I am unable to use moxa because I am doing the treatments in a clinic setting. The one time I tried using moxa it created quite an unpleasant stir.
This post has the following associations:
Acupoints: ex huatuojiaji, gv 20, si 16
"anon9370" has published 3 other forum posts
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Comments / Discussions:
comment by "ChadD" (acupuncturist)
on Jul 2013
For the moxa in a limited clinical setting you should feel free to give it to people in the stick/cigar format for home use. We do that quite often for those that need it.
Our general protocol for ankylosing spondylitis is as follows:
- Huatou at T1, T2, T3 (immune/autoimmune - bone marrow, thymus gland and lung/lymph systems respectively)
- Huatuo at T7 (spleen/blood and circulation into the lower parts of the trunk and body)</li>
- Huatuo at L1, L2, L3 (adrenal, kidney and prostate/ovary respectively)</li>
<li>Huatuo at C1 * - GV 20 - motor cortex
So for us a general treatment would involve first some massage in the sky window area SI 16, etc., followed by needling the points above alone with a selection of constitutional based TCM points. Then deeper tuina on the neck and all of those huatuo points.
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comment by "anon109564"
on Jul 2013
Dear Maxblau
(should we call it spondylosis?)
It is a cold condition all right! I have been talking about it for nearly an year now: Traditional Chinese Vertical Meridians carry mostly yang energy and cannot solve the problems related to cold conditions!
The BIJI Meridians (a new relationship of shu points) can help such cold conditions much better! I wonder how come no one noticed these relationships in China for thousands of years! (and if some of them noticed they probabily could not share!)
In case of bamboo spine (execess cold condition) not only sedation of cold in spine but also traction is called for!
Bone being yin of yang and Kid/UB being responsible for bones the 1st point suggested is rent CV3, next proceed in following order:
rent K5, remove the needle in say30 seconds and reinsert to sedate K5 (cold), sedate LU7 (dry) and tone HT5 (heat) and P6 (hot) points of BIJI PC Horizontal meridian last point sedate UB64 (cold of CV: control point).
Application of needles should be horizontal to traditional Chinese Meridians because the above points make a horizontal meridian sedation of points on legs can be achieved by applying needles away from hand similarly points of hand can be sedated by applying needles away from legs; tonification of points of hands can be achieved by applying needles towards leg and that (tonification) of points of legs can be achieved by applying needles towards hand. (I should love to share the practical technique and the theory behind it but for distance!)
In your case it is expected to give around 25 to 30% relief in 3 sittings.
during 4th sitting you may like to add Kid and Spleen Biji Spiral meridians: tone Liv2 sedate LU5 + tone LU10 sedate PC3 and finish with sedatation of SP9 a/o HT3 (control)
moxa at PC8, SI4, TW4 and SI6 will help no doubt !
regards
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