To know how and why Chinese Medicine heals arthritis, it is first essential to know the basis of why arthritis occurs in the first place.
According to Chinese Medicine in Jacksonville, the human body has a natural ability to remove most of the toxins it takes in. If we breathe in or eat something toxic that’s no problem for the body as it is able to process and expel the toxins. Chinese Medicine also espouses the belief that negative emotions (resentment, fear, bitterness, sadness, anger, etc.) can be toxic and therefore need to be also removed from the body.
But when you are going through a really tough time in your life, physically or emotionally, the natural ability of your body to expel toxins might be overwhelmed during that difficult period of time. The toxins may remain within your body, and your body may be figuring out what it needs to do to expel them or at least, control their effects. Chinese medicine believes that the human body is quite smart. The body prevents the toxins from harming the internal organs by housing the toxins in areas that will keep them inactive and dormant (and keep you alive). Those areas are the joints. Some practitioners and physicians are aware of this and they tell their patient with joint pain how fortunate they are that their body is keeping them safe by putting their toxins in those joints rather than allowing them to put their lives at risk.
One of the remarkable things about the body is how they store these toxins. You just don’t wake up with pain in your fingers one day. It’s not arthritis if you do feel pain in your fingers in one day; it’s probably a sign of severe stress due to a hard day of physical work. With arthritis, the joint pains are usually on the neck, low back, and knees. Those body areas are related to the Bladder Meridian, which is the meridian that first diverts toxins away from the organs to the joints. This meridian is known as a divergent meridian
Divergent Meridians
In Chinese medicine, the divergent Meridians are the body’s way of preventing toxins from accumulating in the center, to keep you safe and alive.
As you age, your neck, low back, or knees could be affected by toxins and by wear and tear. Toxins keep on building up in your body and eventually your body will be unable to cope. As more and more toxins come in, the Bladder Divergent Meridian stores them in different joints until all the joints are filled up. So, the next option of the body is to store the toxins on the shoulders and hips, which is related to the Gall Bladder Divergent Meridian. If the toxins fill up the shoulders and hips, it will go into the feet and hands, which is associated with the Stomach Divergent Meridian. This is when you start to see some swelling appearing in your hands and feet. Deformities may also arise besides the swellings. Eventually, the toxins will affect your overall health.
Chinese Medicine treats arthritis by eliminating the toxins from the places where they’re stored. This means treatment will target the Divergent Meridians. One of the most effective treatments for the elimination of toxins in the body is Gua Sha therapy. This is a scraping procedure that helps cleanse out toxins by passing them out through the skin.
However, in order to make this treatment maximally effective, you first need to be relatively strong as well as healthy physically and emotionally. Your body needs to do the process of elimination, (with a little help from the gua sha therapy), which has become almost impossible once it was overrun by the toxins. And this process is not only done through defecation and urination but sometimes even through extreme emotions or skin rashes.
The Process of Healing
It takes quite a bit of time to fully recover from a severe case of arthritis. Factors that can cause your joints to deform may require time to get better. The Divergent Meridians are only able to eliminate the toxins from your joints. However, there are other procedures that can also be of help. I used to have a patient suffering from severe Rheumatoid Arthritis. When she first came in for treatment, she was hardly able to walk and hold a pen. I could see that her knees and hands were extremely knotted and swollen. She now is able to jump up and down and is considering going back to work in an office. She still suffers from very little pain and her joints appear and function normally once more. I used gua sha therapy to expel the toxins from her joint. To liberate the stuck patterns, I also applied the same therapy to work on her very tight muscles that had upheld the deformed joints. Once the inflammation was treated, I then used Moxibustion to transport fluids to the joints. And to bring back qi flow and vitality, I performed some acupressure techniques that helped restored the strength of her knees and hands.
COMMENTS