A patient with low back pain came to my clinic. Checking her pelvis, right side of her pelvis was higher toward the head. After loosening her low back and her right buttock with round-tip needles, I adjusted her pelvis to make the height the same. Right after the treatment, she felt better and when she came back for the next treatment, she didn’t have pain in her low back so that I focused on the other symptoms and didn’t add the treatment for low back pain. She came back 2 days after her regular chiropractic treatment and she told me that her low back got worse after the chiropractic treatment. She was not able to bend her back backward due to pain. Checking her pelvis, her right pelvis was obviously higher vertically, in addition to being higher to the head. Same as before, I loosened her low back and buttock with round-tip needles and adjusted her pelvis to make the height the same both vertically and horizontally. After the treatment, she became able to bend her back backward without pain. What did the chiropractor adjust? Cozy Acupuncture is located in Witch City Mall in Salem, MA, specializing in pain management such as knee pain, low back pain, sciatica, neck pain, shoulder pain, menstrual pain, etc.
If you are suffering from low back pain, give a try to Cozy Acupuncture. Call today to set up your appointment: 617-584-8703 Book now Online
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(1) Sitting on a couch that makes the low back lower than the knees
When you sit on a couch that makes the low back lower than the knees, the pelvis is bent backward, which applies an excessive burden on the low back, resulting in low back pain. The distortion of the pelvis causes the distortion of the spine (Fig. 1 & 2). Countermeasure: put a cushion or pillow under the buttocks to adjust the low back to the position higher than the knees. (2) Wearing a corset all the time encourages low back pain A corset is effective to relieve pain at the time of acute low back pain by keeping the low back stable. But wearing a corset for a long time weakens the muscles around the low back and causes the opposite effect, which can be the distortion of the spine. Which bag is good to prevent the distortion of the spine, a shoulder bag, a back pack or a hip pack? (Fig. 3) The answer is a hip pack. A hip pack (waist pack) is recommended to prevent the distortion of the spine because the weight is at the center of the low back (Fig. 4). A shoulder bag makes the balance between the right and the left lost, possibly causing the distortion of the spine. When you use a shoulder bag, it is recommended to change the sides to carry on every 30 minutes. A back pack looks like putting less burden on the back, but when the slings are too loose, your upper body is pulled backward due to the weight of the bag so that you have a head forward posture without thinking to keep a balance and that causes low back pain. It is important not to make a gap between the back and the back pack by tightening the slings (Fig. 5). (3) Footwear that the heel is not fixed Footwear that the heel is not fixed like slippers, sandals makes you shuffle weighing backward, which makes your pelvis tilt back and leads to the distortion of the whole body (Fig. 6). (4) A bad tooth A bad tooth makes you bite on the other side without thinking, causing the distortion of the jaw, leading to the distortion of the neck, upper back and lower back. It is important to treat your decayed teeth and bite on both sides of the teeth. First, let's check if your spine is distorted. How to check the distortion of your spine (1) Put your heels, buttocks, shoulders and head on the wall without your hands touching the wall (Fig. 0-1). (2) Raise your right leg slowly and keep it for 5 seconds (Fig. 0-2). (3) If you can keep your right leg up, raise your left leg slowly and keep it up for 5 seconds (Fig. 0-3). (4) If you lose the balance when you raise either leg, your spine can be distorted to that side. If you fall to the left when you raise your left, your spine is distorted to the left. If you fall to the right when you raise your right leg, your spine is distorted to the right (Fig. 0-4). Exercise to improve the distortion of the spine - Crawling exercise The points are: (1) Crawl in the opposite direction of your distortion (Fig. 1). When you lift up your left leg, if you fall to the left, you need to crawl clockwise (right-handed), and when you lift up your right leg, if you fall to the right, you need to crawl counterclockwise (left-handed). (2) The size of the circle to crawl Crawl a large circle at the beginning and gradually make the circle smaller because that makes the muscles supporting the spine slowly stretched and the range of motion of the spine wider without strain. Check the distortion of the spine (Thoracic spine) Extend both your arms, put your palms together and check the tips of your fingers (Fig. 1-1 & 1-2). If the tips of the fingers are misaligned, there can be distortion of thoracic spine (Fig. 1-3). Results after 1 week’s trial
Fig. 2 shows the result of 70 years old male. His back became straightened up and the flexibility when he bent forward became better by 13 cm (about 5 inches). Crawling exercise not only fixes the distortion of the lumber spine but also loosens up the tension of the muscles around, improve the range of motion and makes it easier to bend forward. Fig. 3 shows the result of 24 years old female who had had the distortion of the thoracic spine. Her rounded back became straighter and the line between her nose and jaw returned to vertical, which means the distortion of her cervical spine was also improved (Fig. 4). The tip of her fingers fit without misalignment, which means the distortion of her thoracic spine was improved. Other 5 examinees’ postures were improved as well. If you have low back pain or knee pain for years and nothing have helped, the cause of the pain is possibly not from your low back or knees.
Check if the lower back or knee pain is caused by the new cause When one of the knees is lifted up and the posture is checked from the back, if the buttock that the knee is lifted up is higher than the other side, that is normal. But if the buttock that the knee is lifted up is level with the other side or lower than the other side, that can be caused by the new cause (Fig. 1 & 2). This condition is caused by the abnormality of the hip joint. The normal hip joint has a gap in the joint, but the gap in the abnormal hip joint is narrow (Fig. 3). The narrowing of the gap causes inflammation, and the pain in the hip joint can be mistakenly felt at the low back or knee where is connected to the hip joint through the muscles and nerves (Fig. 4). Why does the abnormality of the hip joint occur? There is cartridge that plays a role of cushion between the femur and the pelvis. The abnormality of the hip joint is caused by placing a huge load on the cartridge. Since the load is placed to the pelvis diagonally due to the structure, more load is placed than placing a load vertically like the knee joint. The cartridge gradually wears due to aging or other reasons. The method to regenerate the worn cartridge of the hip joint The method is called Jiggling that is the movement of shaking the leg lightly up and down or from side to side. When you move the hip joint by shaking the leg, nutrition flows into the joint from synovial fluid and the growth of the cartridge is promoted, regenerating the cartridge. How to do the Jiggling (1) Sit on a chair bending your knees at 90 degree and move your heels up and down. (2) You can do it for both legs at the same time or for each leg alternately. (3) Doing it more than 2 hours a day is effective. Regeneration of the cartridge takes more than a few years, but the pain can be relieved much sooner (Fig. 5). Experient A 53 years old woman who had low back pain for years and whose cartridge of the hip joints were worn out tried the jiggling 2-3 hours a day. 10 days later she started to feel lighter in her low back and when she lifted up a box, she didn’t feel pain, though she was feeling pain before. The most difficult movement was bending her back backward, but she didn’t feel pain with this movement. Overview The patient is a man with the age of 40s. When he played basketball 3 weeks ago, he felt pain in his right buttock. He started to feel pain from his right buttock to the outside of his lower leg a week ago, went to ER and took prescribed medicine, but the pain didn’t go away so that he visited my acupuncture clinic. The pain at the time of standing walking gradually disappeared. He had severe pain appearing especially around the outside of his right lower leg while he is sleeping, but it disappeared after 6th treatment. Remaining tightness around his right buttock and the back of his right thigh disappeared after 9th treatment, so the course of acupuncture treatment for the sciatica from his right buttocks to his right lower leg ended at 10th treatment. Acupuncture Treatment The treatment is based on Individual Treatment for Adult. There was weakness in his Liver energy, so I strengthened his Liver energy by using Liver points on his leg. Painful points with pressure were located on his right buttock, around IT band and on Gall bladder and Stomach meridians on his right lower leg. The number of painful points with pressure gradually decreased and it also became gradually easier to remove those painful points. I only used distal points with round-tip needles to remove the painful points with pressure. As a home therapy, I marked 2-3 points and had him put a penny or aluminum foil on the points for 30-45 minutes every night. Discussion After the first treatment, he felt a little better so that when he went back home, he did gardening and the condition got worse. Before starting the first treatment, I explained him to be careful at the beginning of treatments, but it was not enough. It is understandable that you want to do something more when you feel okay to do that, but that can make the symptom worse and the time of healing longer. But since then, he didn’t do anything making the symptom worse, visited my clinic for follow-up treatments as I instructed and got better as I expected. If you are suffering from sciatica even after you have tried various things, we’re here to help! Cozy Acupuncture in Salem, MA specializes in Pain Management.
Call today to set up your appointment: 617-584-8703 Book now Online
I wrote about my acute low back pain in [CASE] Acute Sciatica (Self-treatment). This is about after Day 3. I made a big mistake after that.
Day 5 I felt much better though the left buttock felt a little tight. So I ran 5 miles to check whether my low back got really better or not. I didn’t feel any pain in my low back and buttocks afterwards. So I thought my low back was completely better. Day 6 When I was treating a patient, I had to keep my posture bending forward over the face of the patient for facial treatment. I felt shooting pain on the left SI joint area. After that, I couldn’t bend forward again. Though I always said to my patients to take it easy for a while when they had pain, I made the same mistake and made the low back pain happen again. This time the pain was localized around the left SI joint. I treated myself with the same method that had relieved the pain. I inserted some needles on my occiput where released the pain on the SI joint and kept the needles for a while. But the needles were not so effective this time and the low back pain stayed the same. Day 7 I tried to treat my low back pain again. I tried to find good points to relieve the pain on my occiput and inserted some needles but there was not much change in my low back. I was at a loss of how to treat my low back. Day 8 I couldn't get good results from the treatment a day before, so I decided to use a round-tip needle instead of regular acupuncture needles. Again I tried to find a responsive point with my right index finger touching left SI joint where was tight and painful with my left index finger. I found a point which the energy passed through the both fingers around behind the left ear and placed a round-tip needle on the exact point. I kept the needle touching the point for about 30 seconds. After that, my low back felt much better and I could bend forward. Day 14 Not to make the same mistake, I didn’t go running. Instead I repeated the same treatment a few times after Day 8. This day I finally tried to check my low back by running 5 miles again. After the running, there was no abnormality. I ran almost every other day 4 times after Day 14, but the low back pain hasn’t come back again. What I learned 1. When there is or was acute type of pain in the body, it is better to rest where you have a problem for a while even if you don’t feel pain very much. 2. When the same problem happens again, it becomes more difficult to treat. 3. Treatment on the head is very convenient and effective to treat myself and others. 4. Treatment using a round-tip needle on the heads can be easier than using regular insertion needles. Insertion needles are usually used for acupuncture treatment on the head, so I have thought that treatment on the head with a round-tip needle is not so effective as with insertion needles. But I felt that a round-tip needle was as effective as insertion needles even for the treatment on the head. In addition, in the case of a round-tip needle, it can be easy to place the tip of the needle on the exact point where the energy flows and change the direction of the needle toward being able to feel more energy. Acute Sciatica (Self-treatment)
I have a kind of chronic low back pain, so after a long flight, I had acute low back pain a few times. This time when I woke up, I felt pain in my left low back to left buttock. That made me difficult to bend forward and make posture to wash my face in the sink. When I stood up and bent forward a little, I felt achy in my right SI joint and squeezing pain around right greater trochanter (left hip and buttock). I could walk, though the sacrum area felt achy. Day 1 It is difficult to treat your own low back because the access is limited. That means it is difficult to bring both hands to the low back to find a point and insert a needle. First I decided that I would attach a press tack needle, which was a very short needle (1 mm) with sticker, at a tight point in my left low back (around left Bladder 25) and spent a day. Unfortunately it didn’t improve the condition. I think that is because it is very difficult to insert the tip of the needle on an accurate point where improves the energy flow of the low back on your own. Day 2 I didn’t do anything, expecting my low back would get better naturally, though it wouldn’t happen. Day 3 Despite expecting my low back would get better, when I got up in the morning, it got worse and the pain was also radiating to the back of my thigh. It became so-called sciatica. Actually I was a little scared, thinking I would need to ask another acupuncturist for a treatment, but instead I decided to treat my back seriously. Obviously it is difficult to treat my low back lying down, so I treated myself sitting down and standing up. I gave up treating my low back and buttocks directly and I couldn’t use points on my legs because I couldn’t bend forward, so I decided to use points on my head to treat low back. I put my left hand on left SI joint where I felt achy and tried to find a good point which released the achiness in the back of my head using my right hand. To confirm whether the point I found was releasing the pain or not, I sit down and stood up repeatedly and once I found a good point to release the pain, I inserted a needle at the point. I repeated the same method for pain in the left buttock, around grater trochanter and in the back of thigh. Then I retained 4 needles on my head. That made it much easier to stand up and sit down without pain, but I noticed that some uncomfortable feeling or achy feeling moved to somewhere I didn’t have any pain before such as the inside of my left thigh or left side of my torso. At this point I realized that I hadn’t done the root treatment which harmonized whole body. After I used a point on Gall bladder (GB 40) to harmonize Spleen energy, the uncomfortable feeling disappeared. After this self-treatment, there was still a little bit of achy feeling on left SI joint with a certain movement, but I was able to move more quickly without pain and bend forward or make the posture to wash my face in the sink without difficulty. Acute Low Back and Buttock Pain A 51 year old female complained of acute low back and buttock pain. The pain suddenly started 2 days ago and was located from right low back to sacrum and right buttock. She couldn’t bend forward and had pain with rotation as well. She often woke up due to the pain. She had fractured her right transverse process of L5 4 years ago. Treatment #1 Her pulse was fast, and her abdomen was tight overall but there were no tender spots. I diagnosed with Liver pattern and needled on her arm to slow down her pulse with a round-tip needle. After I confirmed her pulse slowed down, I asked her to lie on her left side. I palpated her low back and buttocks for tender spots. Tender spots were located on her right iliac crest, buttock and upper part of IT band. I inserted some needles on her head and low back to relieve the tenderness. 20 minutes later I removed the retained needles and palpated the area of tenderness. There were still some tender spots left on her right buttock. I needled on her right foot (GB41) to release these tender spots, but 1 tender spot remained. After the treatment, I asked her to stand and move her low back a little. Since she felt better, no additional treatment was done. Treatment #2 (Next day) After the first treatment, she felt better, but the pain came back at night and she couldn’t sleep well. I did almost the same treatment as the first treatment, but the amount of treatment might be too much in the first treatment, so I decreased the amount of treatment. After the treatment, I asked her to rotate her low back. Since she felt some tightness in her right low back, I did touch-up treatment on her arm. After that, she felt a little bit of soreness, but she said she felt better, so I didn’t do additional treatment to relieve the soreness. Treatment #3 (Next day) She had some soreness in her right buttock but felt much better. The treatment was almost the same as the last treatment. This time it was easier to relieve tender spots on her right buttock and IT band. After the treatment, I asked her to stand and check her low back, but there was no pain with movements and no soreness, so the course of treatments for her acute low back pain was finished. Related article: [CASE] Acute Low Back Pain (Sciatica) Cozy Acupuncture in Salem, MA specializes in Pain Management such as Low back pain, Sciatica, Knee pain, Shoulder pain, headache, Menstrual pain.
When you need pain relief, we're here to help! Call today to set up your appointment: 617-584-8703 or Schedule Online. Acute low back pain (Sciatica)
Male at the age of 40s. 4 days ago during work in the construction site, he had shooting pain in his right low back with some noise. After that, It became difficult to bend forward and backward. He couldn’t sit for a long time. There was pain in the back of his right thigh as well. Treatment #1 I asked him to lie on his back and checked his pulse, abdomen and neck to make diagnosis. I found weakness in his Kidney energy and touched a needle on a Kidney point (Kidney 10) to strengthen his Kidney energy. After confirming his pulse and abdomen became softer, I asked him to lie on his left side and palpated his low back and right thigh. There were pressure-pain points at L5, right SI joint, right buttocks and on and behind right IT band. Some needles on his head and some needles on his low back were inserted. After confirming that painful points disappeared, I asked him to stand up and check his back. Since he still felt pain when he bent backward, I inserted a needle on his upper back as touch-up treatment. When he rechecked his back by bending backward, he didn’t feel any pain, so I told him to come back the next day. Treatment #2 The low back pain got better but he still felt some tightness in his right low back area. He strained too much to eliminate stool and had hemorrhoid. The treatment for his low back pain was almost the same as the last treatment. I added heat therapy (moxa) for hemorrhoid and constipation (Lung 6 and Spleen 4). After the treatment, there was no pressure-pain points, and there was neither pain nor tightness by bending forward and backward. I told him to come back if he would still feel uncomfortable in his low back and thigh, and the treatment for the low back pain was finished. Cozy Acupuncture in Salem, MA specializes in Pain Management such as Low back pain, Sciatica, Knee pain, Shoulder pain, headache, Menstrual pain. When you need pain relief, we're here to help! Call today to set up your appointment: 617-584-8703 or Schedule Online. |
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