Acupunture

As part of our TCM class today we went to Peking University First Hospital in Beijing to watch our teacher perform acupuncture on his patients (and us!). Walking through the hospital was very interesting. There was all the departments and technology that are present in American hospitals, such as pediatrics and oncology and EEG, but there was also the TCM departments of acupuncture and moxibustion. It was very neat to see TCM practicing right along side the modern Western medicine.

We watched our TCM teacher perform acupuncture to a couple of his patients and also give a therapeutic massage to another woman. One of the patients given acupuncture was being treated for disturbances in her menstrual cycle but was having acupuncture on her legs and on her head. This is because acupuncture uses channels that run through the body and stimulating the acupoints at one area can affect different areas of the body along that channel. Once to acupuncture needles are inserted they are hooked up to electrodes to further stimulate the acupoint.

One of our teacher's patients

After our teacher treated his patients he treated us! The ear is very unique because it has acupoints that relate to the entire body. Our teacher inspected all of our ears and determined where our Qi (energy) was disrupted. He was very accurate. He pinpointed someone's head problems and they said they experience headaches almost daily! After he noted the area that needed work he would apply a tiny ball of Chinese herbs to the spot with some medical tape and push it on our ear to stimulate the acupoint. Some of us even got an acupuncture needle inserted into one acupoint. This was a very cool experience.

Susan experiencing TCM first hand!

Zai jian!