Cleopatra (not her real name) is a 63 yo professional, referred to me to for acupuncture for her sciatica. Since May of 2018 (now being Jul ’19) she has been working toward recovery with the winter months of ’18 being worst. As luck would have it, she happened upon a USC physical therapist, and his students, who have been able to bring her back to about 85% recovery by her own account and was looking for complete recovery. In her journey, she’d visited two other acupuncturists with less than stellar results.
There are numerous ways in which acupuncture can address sciatica. There is positively no one way to treat it, so it takes a measure of time to first diagnose the effective points and second to treat them. Although a simple back sprain may require very little intervention, sciatica lasting more than three months usually requires more than an hour to address the varying facets of its presentation.
Conscious Acupuncture Approach to Sciatica
Cleopatra came to me in the wake of a “UTI” for which she had taken two different types of antibiotic one qualitatively exacting on the body. She relayed that her physical therapist had said that she stands the particular risk of an Achilles injury based on his experience with patients who’ve taken that drug. Even though she’d come in for the issue of sciatica, pressing physical concerns cannot be overlooked. The body must be treated as a whole and the effects of either a lingering infection or antibiotics will invariably bear upon treatment outcomes. Recognizing this is one of the core attributes of a Conscious Acupuncture approach.
Also, I detected that Cleopatra suffers from adrenal insufficiency. Adrenals are part of the kidney system in acupuncture and relate to any issue involving the lower part of the body. Her Acugraph readout also showed low lung energy. The lung albeit in the upper part of the body can relate directly to lower back and lumbar problems. Finally in the past year, she had experienced the loss of several individuals close to her.
First Acupuncture Sciatica Treatment
The first treatment consisted of addressing the imbalance created by the antibiotics. Upon rising from the table, Cleopatra felt great but I had her move about a bit to see if the treatment had actually affected the sciatica. It hadn’t. The search for the points and approach to release the sciatica began afoot, as her discomfort increased by the minute and in positions she’d normally not experienced it.
I’ve no way of knowing how a patient will respond. . . either in a session or post session. The time it takes to ascertain the right needle location and duration varies greatly from one patient to the next. Furthermore, if the issue is primarily psychological, needling will provide only temporary relief because the root imbalance, in such cases, hasn’t been addressed. Of course, tools like the Acugraph can expedite the process and what I did based on the Acugraph findings amazed Cleopatra sufficiently to remark upon it in the our second session. It involved the use of a heat therapy called moxa and treating the weak lung.
Session length: 110 minutes.
Second Acupuncture Sciatica Treatment
Cleopatra came in feeling completely recovered from the malaise of having taken an aggressive antibiotic for a UTI. She was completely compliant in terms of my dietary suggestions for the condition and felt back to the new “normal” that she had been experiencing since the sciatica. Her goal was a complete cessation of the sciatic pain. She was still doing physical therapy once a week.
The second acupuncture session included a balance method based on the following. Cleopatra went into a deep sleep. She reported feeling better than before the UTI but the same sensation in the lumbar area, which she rated at a 3.5 on a scale of 10.
Session length: 60 minutes
Third Acupuncture Sciatica Treatment
Cleopatra stated she was at about a 3.5 but her demeanor was qualitatively different. There was much less chatter. She comported herself in a much more gathered manner. She noted that two days after treatment the back pain was less than 3.5, but had returned to the “set point” by the time of her visit. Her tongue looked dry with signs of heat with a deep gully at the root. Pulse was rapid. Face up treatment: Metal over Wood balance method and umbilical acupuncture.
Cleopatra got up from the table saying she felt absolutely no pain in her left leg, which was interesting since it was pain on the right that was her chief concern. She was surprised further by experiencing no pain in the right lumbar region, where she was constantly nagged by discomfort. However, she said the 3.5 sensation was tracking along the right buttock. Face-down treatment employing 8 Extras, sacral, and ear protocols, each in succession. Cleopatra got up feeling no pain.
Session length: 90 minutes.
Reflections
Cleopatra had been suffering from debilitating sciatica since June of ’18. Through good fortune she found a talented physical therapist who was able to get her back to about 65% functionality. She came to me, upon referral, after having tried two other acupuncturists once in her journey toward recovery.
There is no simple way to treat the individual. Thence, the Conscious Acupuncture approach necessarily addresses the whole person, treating pressing conditions in addition to the patients chief complaint. In this case, Cleopatra was suffering the effects of antibiotic poisoning, so to speak, for a UTI. All lower body issues must be seen as related because they are related to the function of the same system, in this case the kidney. By addressing the side-effects of the antibiotics, the body’s energy could be freed up to rectify the sciatica, also related to the kidney.
The first session’s success could not have been accomplished without the assistance of the Acugraph, a digital meridian imaging software program which provides insights into the body’s overall distribution of energy, in this case the eletrical voltage distributed throughout the body. It clued me into a weak lung, which can be attacked by grief (the loss she mentioned in the initial interview) but for which there is a highly effective protocol involving moxa.
The work with Cleopatra is not finished, but the real-time approach to treating her sciatica has won her confidence in my competence. Conscious Acupuncture is hella “real-time.” This means rare is the instance where a patient walks from a treatment not feeling considerable relief from pain being experienced or pain discovered upon examination. It draws upon numerous protocols and systems to get patients feeling better.
Here’s how you can begin your road to recovery.