Blog for acupuncture and home therapy - Cozy Acupuncture in Salem, MA

Do you want to improve Knee Pain (3/3)

12/31/2015

How to increase proteoglycan to prevent and improve the knee pain

The important point to increase proteoglycan is bending and extending the knee joints. The recommended exercise to increase proteoglycan is walking 10 minutes 3 times a day. You don’t need to walk continuously 30 minutes, so even if you don’t have much physical strength, you can continue.

When you walk, lifting your knees as high as possible and walking with wide strides make the production of proteoglycan more efficient.

If you are not used to exercise, the following method helps you get motivated and continue the walking.

Prepare a drawing paper, a black marker, a red marker and blue color stickers.
Draw an image of the knee on a drawing paper.
Paint the knee joint part of the image with a red marker. The red is the image that proteoglycan is lost. (Fig. 3)
Every time you walk 10 minutes, apply one blue sticker on the red part of the image. You can visualize that blue proteoglycan increases every time you walk. (Fig. 4)

Fig. 5 shows the result of 2 weeks walking exercise that a 70s woman who had severe knee pain tried. You can see that after just 2 weeks walking exercise, there is not much red part and there is more blue part. That means her proteoglycan increased. Actually it seems like it became not so difficult to climb up and down stairs and to bend her knees though the knee pain was not completely gone.

Do you want to improve Knee Pain? (2/3)

12/30/2015

What is the difference between people who has a lot of proteoglycan and people who doesn’t?

I think the importance of proteoglycan was understood.
Now why do some people have more proteoglycan and some people doesn't?

Proteoglycan increases or decreases due to the difference of the casual lifestyle.

The difference of the casual life style is if you bend and extend your knee in your daily life or not.
Bending and extending the knee increase the blood flow of the knee, and more oxygen with blood is brought to the knee. The cartridge cells are activated by the oxygen, making more proteoglycan.

3 conditions decrease Proteoglycan

1. Weight gain – The more your weight is, the more the risk to break down the cartridge increases because of more burden to the knee. Breakdown of the cartridge causes the loss of the function as sponge, the difficulty of absorbing oxygen and nutrition, and lowering the metabolism of the cartridge, resulting in being difficult to make proteoglycan.

2. Over 40 years old – degeneration of the cartridge of the knee progresses from 40s gradually, leading to being difficult to make proteoglycan.

3. Female –Female’s cartridge tends to degenerate twice as many as male’s. Estrogen that is a female hormone has a function to protect the cartridge. Decrease of estrogen due to menopause makes the cartridge easy to damage, resulting in being difficult to make proteoglycan.

Do you want to improve Knee Pain? (1/3)

12/29/2015

What is the substance to keep your knee young?

A lot of knee pain is caused by osteoarthritis of the knee which is a disease that the joint cartridge playing a roll of cushion is broken down. The main cause of osteoarthritis of the knee is aging, so many people give up the improvement of the condition.

But there is a substance which makes your knee younger, that is proteoglycan. The more you have proteoglycan in your knee, the younger you can keep your knee, resulting in reducing the knee pain.

Fig. 1 shows the knee joint without knee pain and the blue part is proteoglycan.

On the other hand, Fig. 2 shows the knee of 70s women who has knee pain. The blue part of proteoglycan is lost and there is a lot of red part.

What is the function of Proteoglycan?

The joint cartridge is mainly composed of cartridge cells, collagen and proteoglycan. Proteoglycan stores water. The joint cartridge is like a sponge storing a lot of water. When the knee is pressurized, the stored water comes out of the cartridge and absorbs the shock. Once the pressure is released, the water goes back to the cartridge and proteoglycan store the water.

If proteoglycan decreases due to some causes, the cartridge can’t store water, losing the cushion and the cartridge breakdowns with pressure.

6 Cents Treatment

12/28/2015

I usually have my patients do home therapy using a penny and a nickel, called 6 Cents Treatment. This treatment regulates the energy flow of your body influencing the diseased area like acupuncture treatment. The acupuncture points to place a penny and a nickel are called Extraordinary Vessel points. There had been classical 8 points and 4 combinations in the extraordinary vessel points, and 4 more points were added. I choose 2 or 3 points and have my patients tape the coins on the points.

The frequency of treatment is once or twice a day, and if you have problems with pain, you can do this treatment when you feel pain. The duration is 30 minutes. If the marked black dots for the treatment fade off, mark them by yourself before they are completely gone. Penny is often dark and rusty, so try to use a shiny penny or make it shiny before using it. This treatment is usually applicable for 2 weeks.

The treatment is very simple, but if you forgot, please refer to the following.

How to do 6 Cents Treatment

Prepare a nickel and a penny if I marked 2 black dots on your hand and leg. (fig. 1)
Tape the coins as I told you like a nickel goes to your hand and a penny goes to your leg. (fig. 2 & 3)
Keep them for 30 minutes and remove them.

You can also use magnets and moxa (heat therapy) on these points. When you want to use them instead of coins, please let me know.

Is Your Edema Hard?

12/27/2015

If your edema is hard and you don’t have any internal disease, there is a possibility of a generalized (both sides and all of the body) edema called idiopathic edema occurring from an unknown cause.

A typical edema usually occurs related to some abnormality of internal organs such as kidney, heart or liver, but this type of edema occurs without such abnormality.

Idiopathic edema is a disease that the mesh between the blood vessels and the cells becomes larger, leading to the leakage of more fluid from the blood vessels to the cells.

The characteristics of idiopathic edema are:

The edema is hard and doesn’t become dented when it is pressed.

In a typical edema, since the mesh between blood vessels and cells is small, only water leaks out to the cells, so the edema is soft and stays dented when it is pressed with fingers. On the other hand, in idiopathic edema, the mesh is large so proteins and other substances also leak out to the cells, making the edema hard and less dented.

The difference of the weight within a day is more than 3 lbs.

The inside of the blood vessel is insufficient of water due to the leakage. If a doctor prescribes a diuretic drug which encourages urination, considering your edema as a typical edema, taking a diuretic drug increases the amount of urine temporarily, but the inside of the blood vessel becomes even more insufficient of water. To compensate water in the blood vessel, your body tries to pull back the water into the blood vessel, reducing the amount of urine. As a result, swelling becomes worse and weight gains.

There was mental stress when the edema occurred.

According to a theory, if various kinds of mental stress stimulates the pituitary body in the brain, a special hormone that makes the mesh between the blood vessel and the cell large is secreted.

There is no specific medicine for idiopathic edema. It is important to reduce the stress you are holding.

Lingering Cough

12/26/2015

About 70% of long lasting cough is caused by cough-variant asthma and atopic cough.

Cough-variant asthma is a type of asthma in which the main symptom is a dry, non-productive cough, but there is often no typical asthma symptoms like wheezing or shortness of breath. Coughing lasts longer than 8 weeks and sometimes a year. It is caused by the contraction of the smooth muscle in the bronchi.

Atopic cough's main symptom is a dry, non-productive cough and it lasts longer than 8 weeks like cough-variant asthma, but it is caused by over-sensitivity of the sensory nerve in the throat.

Coughing tends to increase at the following period of time
Cough-variant asthma and Atopic cough:
When starting to fall into a doze and a few hours before waking up.

Sinobronchial syndrome (complication of Chronic bronchitis and Sinusitis, wet cough and nasal mucus) :
From when you get up throughout the morning

In Eastern medicine, cough-variant asthma and atopic cough are considered as Lung deficiency or Ja in Lung, and sinobronchial syndrome is considered as Kidney deficiency.

Possibility of unexpected diseases if you have chronic cough at the following period of time,
Coughing after meal: Reflux esophagitis (acid reflux)
1 to 2 hours after going to bed: Cardiac Insufficiency

Sign of Breast Cancer You Can See (4)

12/24/2015

Recess on the Breast

If there is recess on the breast, there could be a lump inside. The lump pulls the skin, making recess on the breast. It is not painful with pressure, but if it is palpated in detail, there is a hard lump inside.

Retraction of the Nipple

In the case that the nipple originally pointing outward became retracted into the breast, there is a possibility that the nipple was pulled by a tumor in the breast.

In addition to retraction, the nipple sometimes directs sideways or downward, pulled by a tumor.

If such abnormal changes in the nipple happen within a few months, there is a possibility of breast cancer.

Sign of Breast Cancer You Can See (3)

12/23/2015

Difference of the size between right and left breasts

When the difference of the size of both breasts appears, it tends to be considered as mastopathy.

Mastopathy is caused by the decrease of female hormone due to aging. Since most cases are transient changes, they are not treated and will be a follow-up examination.

So the sign of the disease is easily overlooked.

To find this type of breast cancer, it is important to check if only one side of of brassiere is tight.

Sign of Breast Cancer You Can See (2)

12/22/2015

Redness of the Breast

This is the sign of breast cancer you can see with your eyes. The redness looks like eczema, but it doesn't go away and becomes larger.

This type of breast cancer doesn't form a lump and is called Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

Cancer cells break the wall of the milk duct, goes into lymph ducts, and spread out the whole breast without forming a big lump.

The redness appears because lymph ducts are clogged by cancer cells and the flow of lymph is interrupted, causing the inflammation.

Inflammatory breast cancer is a very rare type of cancer, but it metastasizes to other part of the body such as lymph nodes or the lung about 1 month after the redness of the breast appears.

So it is important not to miss the appearance of the redness of the breast.

Sign of Breast Cancer You can see (1)

12/21/2015

Breast cancer usually starts off in the milk duct and as it grows, it break the wall of the milk duct, forming a lump.

On the other hand, in the case of Infiltrating Duct Carcinoma, the breast cancer grows without breaking the wall of the milk duct and spreads along the milk duct, so it is difficult to feel a lump. For even doctors, it is difficult to find by palpation.

What is a sign of Infiltration Duct Carcinoma?

That is brownish spots on the brassiere.

This brownish spots are bleeding from the nipple.
So it is recommended to often check the inner side of the brassiere.

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