Due to the stress from the surrounded situation caused by COVID-19, there are a lot of people whose breathing become shallow.

Related to the article posted in my blog: Let’s Relieve Broken Heart Syndrome caused by Stress due to COVID-19, it is also important that your nose is not stuffy to breathe smoothly.

We can only breathe deeply when you breathe in from your nose.

Please compare when you breathe in from your nose to when you breathe in from your mouth.

How did you feel? You should not be able to breathe deeply from your mouth.
That is because in the nose, the air is mixed with NO which opens the lung and softens the capillaries, but when you breathe in from your mouth, that process doesn’t happen so the lung doesn’t accept the air from the mouth.

For easier breathing, I want to introduce the acupuncture points that open your nasal passage.

1. Above the nose and about a half inch below the hair line, there is the bulge of the bone. Please massage the point (Fig. 1).

2. A half inch above the eyebrow, there may be tender points. Please massage these points (Fig. 1).

3. Please massage the base of the arms (Fig. 2).

Please massage these acupuncture points when you have a stuffy nose.

If you feel tightness of chest or difficulty of breathing, please also read the following article:

Let’s Relieve Broken Heart Syndrome caused by Stress due to COVID-19

The patient is a woman in her 50s, who is a caregiver.
 
3 days ago when she tried to change the posture of a heavy person on the bed, she hurt her left low back. She feels pain when she walks and bend her back backward.
 
1st Treatment
When I checked her pulse, I thought this was a typical acute low back pain because her pulse was very tight. So I gave her the treatment for acute low back pain, removing tender spots on her low back and buttocks and attached a very short needle with sticker on her low back. She felt pain when she got up, so I added an adjustment of her rib cage. When I had her stand up and check her back, she felt much better, so I fished the first treatment.
 
2nd Treatment (2 days later)
Yesterday, when she moved the heavy person again, she felt pain in her right low back.  Today she feels pain in the center with bending backward and in each side with bending sideways.
 
Since she had pain on both sides of her low back and also the center of the low back, I chose to treat both sides of her low back with normal low back pain treatment. After the treatment, her low back was not improved at all. I added some needles to remove tender spots found when she stood up, but her low back pain didn’t change.
 
I thought she might have had another acute low back pain on her right side and asked her to lie on her side and gave the treatment for acute low back pain. When she stood up and checked her low back, her low back was not completely better, but was improved. I stopped treatment here to avoid too much amount of treatment.
 
3rd Treatment (2 days later)
2 days after the last treatment, her low back pain was much better. Only when she bend her back to the left, she felt pain on her left buttock. She was standing all day but didn’t do the work to move the heavy person. I treated her left low back and buttock and when she stood up, she still felt some pain with bending side way, so I found painful spots on her left buttock and removed them with a touch-up needle. I asked her to check her back again and this time she felt better. Since she felt much better on her low back, I finished the treatment for her acute low back pain.
 
At the second treatment, I couldn’t recognize another acute low back pain was happening on the other side at the beginning because I had no idea that 2 acute low back pain happening within a few days. I learned that I should carefully check the patient’s condition without preconceptions.

I introduced a case of a child’s stomachache before. This is a case of an adult’s stomachache.
 
A male in his 50s visited my clinic with pain in his stomach and left lower abdomen. The pain started 1 year ago. 2 weeks before he came to my clinic, he had had a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy and 2 polyps had been removed, but nothing abnormal had been found. 1 week later he had had a CT scan, but again nothing abnormal had been found. There was always a dull pain and sometimes a sharp pain occurred, especially after eating. His lifestyle was very healthy.
 
The result of acupuncture treatment is that after the 3rd treatment, pain in his stomach was gone, and after the 4th treatment, the pain in both his stomach and left lower abdomen was gone, and the course of acupuncture treatments was finished by the 6th treatment.
 
In every treatment, I mainly removed the pressure-pain on his abdomen, and the prolapse of his stomach and intestines were suspected so that I tried to move the organs up.
 
He also had his left shoulder pain, but this got better as well.

A 9 years old girl came to my clinic with her mother. She had had experienced stomachache all the time for more than a year. She had taken various kinds of tests in the hospital, but the cause of the stomach ache was unknown. She had had gall stones accumulated in her gall bladder, so they were removed, but the stomach ache didn’t change at all. Because the doctor in the hospital recommended to try acupuncture, she came to my clinic.
 
When I pressed around her navel, there were some tender points.
 
I gave her Pediatric acupuncture twice a week.
 
Her condition was up and down, and the stomachache came and went for a while.
 
At 14th treatment, she reported that her stomach ache became one tenth and the pressure pain around her navel, which had never gone away, disappeared. So from the 15th treatment, I made the frequency of the treatment once a week.
 
At 22nd treatment, her stomachache completely disappeared and after that, she didn’t complain about stomachache at all.
 
At 27th treatment, confirming that her stomachache didn’t come back, the course of the treatment for her stomach ache ended.

It led to good results that she had continuously had my treatments trusting my acupuncture.
 
What I did during the course of the treatments was mainly Pediatric acupuncture(Video), the treatment placing a round-tip needle on the pressure-pain points around her naval and giving her homework placing a penny and a rolled aluminum foil on marked acupuncture points.
 
Her mother wrote about her treatment, so please read it by clicking here.

A 7 years old girl visited my clinic with her mother because she couldn’t have fallen asleep with nervousness thinking too much before going to bed for about 2 months.
 
When I checked her neck and shoulder area, the area was tight. Before giving her the pediatric acupuncture, I shook her body from her legs laying her on her back, but her chest and above were not shaking so much due to the tightness.
 
I touched her neck and shoulder area with a round-tip needle to loosen the area in addition to the pediatric acupuncture and finished the first treatment.
 
When she came for the second treatment, her sleep was improved and when I shook her body from her legs, her chest and the above was shaking a little, but her neck was still tight.
 
After the second treatment, the tightness around her neck was gradually loosened up. When I gave her 3 more treatments, I ended the course of the treatments for her sleep and nervousness since she could sleep well and the tightness in her chest and the above disappeared.
 
It seems like this was the case that the nervousness caused the tightness in the chest, neck and shoulders, resulting in difficulty of falling asleep.

I had had pain in my right hip joint in October the last year as described in a blog post. I got the same kind of pain in my right hip joint one and a half months ago. While I was running, I was feeling some discomfort in my right hip joint and since then, I have had pain and tightness in my right hip joint, inguinal area, thigh, sin and the top of my right foot when I walk and sometimes when I sit or lie on my sides.
 
The cause of the pain is, I think, a pair of new shoes because I was wearing the same shoes when I had had hip joint pain the last time, so I wore these shoes twice only when I got hip joint pain.
 
The condition was almost similar to the last time, but was not as severe as the last time. In the case of self-treatment, where I can treat is very limited, so at the beginning, I was using a round-tip needle at the acupuncture point located in the side of the body, which helped relieve the pain the last time. But unfortunately it didn’t improve the condition so much this time.  Next, I tried some acupuncture points on my head, but they didn’t help so much either.
 
I was wondering how I could improve the condition this time. Then I chose Hand Healing and/or Energy therapy. The treatment was done mainly while I was walking because that was when to have pain in my right hip joint. I touched where I felt pain with my hand through a pocket of my pants and for where I was not able to reach while I was walking, I made an image that an imaginary hand reached and touched where was painful. Every time I did that, the pain was relieved a little. when the pain moved to another location, I repeated the same treatment until the pain didn't come out.
 
At home, I touched where I felt pain with my hand. I repeated this kind of treatment and my hip joint gradually got better, and I started running again. But I’m afraid of wearing the shoes again, though I only wore twice since I had bought them.
 
Touching therapy and making an imaginary hand seem mysterious, but actually the concept of the treatment is the same as touch-needle acupuncture, which focuses energy at an acupuncture point and sends the energy to where is painful points by the help of imagination. 

The pulse is a kind of a monitor. When I touch an acupuncture point with a round-tip needle, the pulse changes. If what I did to the acupuncture point, the pulse becomes softer and slower, but if I did something wrong to the acupuncture point or my skill was not good enough, the pulse becomes harder and faster. That is why I check the pulse frequently after I touch an acupuncture point with a round-tip needle or insert a regular needle.
 
The pulse also changes by just touching with the finger. If I touch an acupuncture point too hard with my finger, the pulse becomes hard and/or fast, and if I touch an unsuitable acupuncture point for your body, the pulse also changes the same way.
 
The same thing happens to the abdomen and other parts of the body. If I touch a suitable acupuncture point with right strength, the abdomen becomes soft and smooth. So I check the abdomen and the muscle of the neck as well in order to confirm my pulse reading is correct, especially when the changes of the pulse is subtle.
 
That the pulse becomes harder and faster means your body gets stressed, while that the pulse becomes softer and slower means your body gets relaxed, which is the condition that acupuncture tries to lead to.  

​The patient was 9 years old girl. She had been to my clinic for other health issues, but one day she came with her right ankle pain. She hurt her right ankle a few days ago, but she didn’t know how it happened. The inside of her right ankle hurt when she walked or just stood.
 
Laying her down on her back, I checked her ankle. There was heat around ankle bone. When the ankle was twisted inward and outward, and was flexed downward and upward, she felt pain inside of her ankle.
 
After general pediatric acupuncture treatment, I checked her right ankle for painful points with pressure. There were 5 painful points and I tried to relieve the pain, but a few points remained painful. Then when she stood up, her ankle still hurt even though it was a little better.
 
When she came to my clinic 2 days after the last treatment, her ankle still hurt. She went to see a doctor and took X-rays, but there was nothing wrong.
 
When I checked her ankle for painful points with pressure, there were no painful points around the ankle bone but 2 painful points on the ankle bone. After general pediatric acupuncture treatment, I gave a little strong vibration with a tool called Dispersion needle to the painful points on the ankle bone, and then asked her to stand up. She said her ankle didn’t hurt. She went home without an ankle support brace she had been wearing when she had come.
 
When she came back 4 days later, she didn’t feel any pain in her ankle even if I pressed around her ankle and there was no heat around the ankle.
 
This was a case that a tiny hairline crack on her ankle bone was suspected, which didn’t show up on X-rays, but Dispersion needle was as effective for this kind of cases as I had experienced before.

A woman with the age of 60s came to my clinic with pain and tingling sensation in her left inguinal area, low back, buttock and thigh.
 
4 weeks ago she had visited a doctor and had been diagnosed with shingles, and a week later she had visited another doctor and had been diagnosed with Meralgia Paresthetica. She had tried to cool, warm the area of the pain, apply CBD cream and take pain killers every 4 hours, but there had not been any improvement.
 
She was referred to my clinic by her niece who was my patient, but very skeptical about acupuncture.
 
Her symptom showed up when she lay on her side during sleep. After the first treatment, pain and tingling sensation in her left thigh disappeared and she could sleep on either side, but she seemed still skeptical and was thinking that it got better because one week had passed.
 
After the second treatment, pain and tingling sensation in her low back, buttock and inguinal area disappeared mostly as well. At this point, she seemed like trusting the effectiveness of acupuncture treatment.
 
I finished her third treatment telling her to come back for 2 more treatments to prevent reoccurrence.

A patient came to my clinic. He had had ringing in the ear before. That had been good after some acupuncture treatments, but it came back.
 
In the case of ringing in the ear, I usually retain needles at the points located around the ear in addition to the whole body treatment, and at the end of the treatment, I leave a short needle at one of the points around the ear.
 
I did the similar treatment on him, but when he came back, he told me that his ear was good for just a few days. So I left a short needle at the different point from the previous treatment, but the result of the treatment was almost the same.
 
So I decided to leave a tiny ball on a sticker around his hip joint. Hip joint?
 
When he had come for ringing in the ear previously, it had been difficult to leave a needle around the ear because of the hair, so I had tried to use a point around the hip joint. This point had not been indicated for ringing in the ear, but I just had felt like it could be effective for the ear. And actually it had worked well.
 
But I found a good needle which could stay even in the hair so that I started to use the needle in the hair instead of the hip joint point.
 
He came back again in a week and this time he told me he didn’t notice ringing in the ear so much.
 
Hip joint for ringing in the ear?
 
Acupuncture is interesting.