Something I see with a measure of regularity is heart arrhythmia. No one ever comes to the Center because their heart is not keeping time, but when I see this problem I will add a Japanese protocol for a couple sessions to see if the issue can be rectified quickly. However, often this protocol doesn’t work. When that is the case, I watch to see how treatment for the condition that the patient is being treated affects the heart rhythm.
Even though heart arrhythmia is a situation that does not produce symptoms, clearly it is not something that can be regarded as altogether unimportant. In fact, it is reasonable to conclude that it is very important, despite the absence of symptoms and the inability of orthodox medicine to identify it as such. After all, the heart in some regards is central command. Kiiko Matsumoto, famous Japanese acupuncturist in Massachusetts who greatly influences my acupuncture style, suggests that many arrhythmias are due to infectious agents residing in the connective tissue of the heart.
There are three pulse types that relate directly to heart rhythm. The heart rate that regularly misses a beat is the only one regarded as congenital. The arrhythmias I see most commonly are of two types. One is where a beat is missed occasionally without affecting the overall rhythm. The other is one where a missed beat affects the heartbeat in a fashion akin to the stumbling of a drunk, where hurried beats are followed by slower ones all out of rhythm. It seems fair to conclude that the latter of these is more serious by virtue of the degree of disturbance it causes. A strong system is not swayed by microbes.
I had one case where a woman in her 60s suffered from extreme sinus, energy, and digestive problems. Her condition started in her 20s. She had a rhythm that could be likened to a person greatly out of shape, where after beating for some short duration it would stop completely for some measure before starting with the drunken routine. Sometimes the heart would beat four, five, or seven counts before missing a beat. If it went for 13 or 19, then there would be a long pause before ensuing with the drunken routine and then resume with four or five beats before getting up enough strength for a longer count before repeating the same pattern. I concluded that this was a picture where microbial factors had not only colonized the heart’s connective tissue but had also greatly taxed the sympathetic nervous system, particularly the adrenals.
Obviously, when an arrhythmia is corrected it a strong indication that treatment is working on a deep level. From what I can gather about Kiiko Matsumoto’s protocol for heart arrhythmia, results are achieved instantly, but this has not been my experience. Pursuing a course of treatment that generally seeks to fortify the body’s functional integrity becomes necessary. This involves herbs and moxa in addition to acupuncture. As for the case above? It was resolved successfully but only after close to a year.