DiagnosingPainBeyondQandBlood.PDF

Diagnosing Pain Beyond Qì and Blood Stagnation A Look at Painful Obstruction (Bi Syndromes) Written The student clinic is a great place to get fresh perspectives as well as refine by: one’s thinking on almost any topic. Students never cease to amaze me Jason with their beginner’s mind ingenious approaches to common problems. On Blalack the other hand, I have noticed many common errors in thinking that happen across the board. Precisely because such ideas are so entrenched, they lend Originally a good opportunity for growth and exploration. Pain, one of the most Published: common complaints treated by acupuncturists, can be quite elusive for the student and practitioner alike. Although on the surface pain seems simple, Chinese Medicine especially with Chinese medicine’s adage “where there pain there is Times stagnation”, in the real-life clinic it can be most perplexing. Even with 2006-2007 acupuncture, herbs, western meds, or bio-feedback there are those that seem not to be able to escape the grips of this “simple” complaint. In the student clinic that I supervise, there is the almost exclusive diagnosis of pain being equated with “qì and blood stagnation (in X channel system)”. No matter if the condition is acute or chronic, hot or cold, deficient or excess, the diagnosis does not seem to change. In and of itself this is not an incorrect diagnosis. It is though, in the majority of cases, an incomplete and simplified answer to a problem that many times can benefit from a more sophisticated diagnostic approach. Essentially the diagnosis of qi and blood stagnation only tells you where the pain is located; it gives no guidance more than treat and open a gi