Welcome to the week of the solar eclipse. I suggest taking it as easy as you can, resting as much as you can, and letting go of the small stuff. It’s not a week to take on the universe single-handedly. With energies high and disrupted, it is sure to be a week of toe stubbing and elbow banging. This has got me thinking about what I’ve been taught to do with aches and pains. 

In Chinese medicine, we generally think of aches and pains belonging to either the acute or chronic category. Fall on your knee today, that’s an acute injury and will generally be red, sore, potentially swollen, and hurt badly to the touch. For this type of injury, I was taught to clean it up, get off of it and rest, and gently massage the surrounding areas to keep fluids flowing. I was not taught to ice it, in fact, I was taught that “ice is for dead things” which basically meant anything you’d put in the freezer to store and eat later. Since healing happens with blood and lymph flow, any cold will slow that process, I was taught no ice. And if you can get an acupuncture treatment around the time of your acute injury, this is the best time to promote healing so that your injury can heal and be an ache no more. 

If, however, this acute injury does not heal properly and the redness and swelling go down but the pain persists, then we enter the chronic category. Chronic can mean two months or ten years ago. Chronic aches and pains from injury can last a lifetime. From my standpoint as an acupuncturist, we need to stimulate healing to the area that did not happen in the past. This includes movement, especially dedicated to the body area such as you’ll receive in physical therapy, massage and tissue manipulation around the area, regular and consistent acupuncture treatments, good sleep, an anti-inflammatory diet, and possibly supplements that help bring down inflammation as well. 

I am often asked, “Which is best — physical therapy, chiropractic, massage, or acupuncture?” and I respond, “All of them!” because all of them can help. What about x-rays and MRIs? I think finding out what the problem is can be very helpful for you to understand a chronic injury that is consistently painful. At times an injury can be so bad that it requires surgical intervention. I’ve seen this happen most with shoulders, knees, and hips. Although I never think surgery should be the first option, there are times when it is part of the solution to a long-standing problem. 

Aches and pains can also come from other internal issues — headaches, migraines, menstrual related issues, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, Lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, and a host of other reasons. For most of these acupuncture can be very helpful. In my experience, headaches, migraines, menstrual related issues, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue all often respond well to acupuncture. I have had less success with Lupus, although it really depends on the person. In any autoimmune disease, acupuncture (which stimulates immunity) can have the paradoxical effect of making the issue flare up. We never know who this will happen with or when, so it’s a trial and error situation. I suggest people try it and see, because if it is helpful, that’s great, and if it isn’t you’ll know pretty quickly. 

Whatever your aches and pains are, please let me know about them and we’ll address them with acupuncture and see if you can get any relief. From Chinese medicine’s standpoint, any area of pain is caused by the blockage of the flow of energy, blood, or fluids. To get the pain to decrease, we need to increase the flow. That’s pretty much what acupuncture is all about — increasing and harmonizing your flow.