Acupuncture treatment blocks should be considered when a patient does not respond in any way to treatment. My teacher would often say, if a patient improves that is a good thing, if a patient feels worse after treatment that can also be a good thing because it gives us information and can guide future treatments. When a patient has zero response to treatment for better or worse, this is not ideal as the treatment had no effect on the patient.
In my experience as an acupuncturist in Manhattan, treating the channel system as indicated by palpation and classical key indicators will in most cases improve a patient’s condition. If it does not, we need to check if there are treatment blocks.
Treatment blocks can be physical in nature, sometimes occurring after surgery or physical trauma. It can also occur with exposure to extreme climate conditions and emotional trauma in addition.
Examples of treatment blocks are outlined below.
Scar tissue after injury or surgery
Scar tissue impairs the normal circulation of the channels and until resolved may prevent normal channel response and blood flow. If scar tissue is impairing the system, when treated, many different signs and symptoms will improve with treatment.
Cold impairments
This can occur after surgery or with intense exposure to cold climates. When examining the channel areas of cold can be felt and outlined. Cold impairments can take some time to resolve and may cause a patient to temporarily feel worse while being treated. It is important to reduce and minimize cold exposure when being treated for this block. When treating this block, the session is usually longer in duration as cold takes a long time to dissipate.
Emotional Trauma
We often say the tissue planes store emotional content and when treated may cause a person to experience the emotions/situations caused by the trauma in the first place. Sometimes releasing the area where people feel discomfort may enable the emotion to release. Other times we can use specific protocols that enable a patient to let go of trapped emotions. Any emotional extreme can cause the channel to stagnate and impair normal circulation.
Heat impairments
This occurs after a patient has been exposed to extreme heat. They may have had a heatstroke prior and after this experience, they noticed their health was never the same. Treating heat impairments often involves the use of heat regions. These are areas of the body where heat has a tendency to get stuck. This includes the top of the head, the upper trapezius, occipital area, and below the 7th cervical vertebrae. When treating heat, the classics say, to needle quickly.
Improper treatment previously with either acupuncture or medications
Although rare, acupuncture when performed improperly can cause channel impairments.
This occurs when treatments are too strong for the patient’s condition. Sometimes the patient may have had a bad experience with acupuncture where the practitioner was overly aggressive in needle placement and or stimulation.
How to achieve success with acupuncture treatments…
Understanding the nature of treatment blocks and resolving them, will help set the patient on a great foundation for treatment by enabling normal channel responsiveness. Once this occurs, treating channel system as indicated by palpation and classical key indicators will be much more effective.
