Non-invasive Acupuncture and Chinese Healing Herbs for Back Pain Relief
Whether an injury, or just back pains and stiffness, the suggestions you find on this and our other back pain pages can be of great help.
If you’re a baby-boomer and growing older along with the rest of us, you may begin having backaches, knee pain etc., and since you prefer a natural pain relief, Chinese Herbal Remedies and our DIY non-invasive Acupuncture is one of your best choices. Chinese Medicine is rapidly gaining in popularity, including relief for back pain.
Causes of Back Pain.
In addition to sports injuries, lack of exercise and using the body carelessly is one of the major causes of back pains Many of us sit in front of a computer for too many hours a day and do not take breaks to stretch and move around enough to keep the vital energy moving so that the body remains flexible and strong.
Bad habits, such as slouching while reading or watching TV, or wearing shoes with no arch support while standing or walking can lead to back problems. A simple arch support may relieve back pain in such cases.
However, most situations are not that simple and require a knowledgeable health professional to determine what kind of back pain therapy is appropriate.
There can be hidden causes to pain – it can be caused by a kidney or bladder problem, constipation, abnormal curvature of the spine, excessive weight, female pelvic problems, osteoporosis, even emotions or stress.
The main cause of a chronic back and leg pain could be a herniated disk, therefore it’s important to have this checked out by an MRI or Xray. Visit a doctor, have appropriate tests performed and choose the back pain therapy best suited to the situation.
Chinese Medicine Back Pain Therapy Corrects Energy Imbalance
A sports injury suffered by a young person can be the sole cause of back pain. In TCM this would belong to a category called Chi and Blood Stasis. But the patterns of disharmony may overlap. For instance, acute or chronic rheumatic symptoms aggravated by damp and cold are often influenced by an underlying kidney deficiency.
In all cases, we have a disruption of energy and blood flow or a short supply of one or both.
Using Needle-less Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs treats the cause while providing Back Pain Relief.
Chi is a moving force that pervades all that exists. It adjusts to the qualities present in its environment and causes changes according to the physical or emotional influences. When plenty of Chi flows naturally the blood is nourished, the cell ‘pumps’ in vessels, muscles and ligaments fire with ample oxygen, the sodium/potassium intake and outflow is balanced, and through it we stay healthy, energetic and pain-free.
Traumatic Injury.
For most sports enthusiasts the first line of action after sports or other injury is to use an ice pack and to reach for painkillers. But more natural, effective and popular analgesic in China is ‘Scandent Schefflera – Qi Ye Lian’. It contains the root of Schefflera and Rz. Corydalis, a well known pain-relieving remedy. Another one is ‘Muscles and Bones Traumatic Injury Pill – Jin Gu Die Shang Wan’, which relieves pain as well as bruising and swelling in early stages of injury.
Liniments such as ‘Zheng Gu Shui’ or medicated plasters such as ‘Plaster for Bruise and Analgesic – Die Ta Zhi Tong Gao’ you can apply to the injured area (as long as the skin is intact).
Most of the Chinese Herbal Remedies recommended on our pages are available from a Chinese herbalist in your area
In a modified form, including medicines for back pain relief, are also available from North American manufacturers. In the Back Pain Supplements and Information section of www.herbalremedies.com you’ll find effective remedies in a pill or capsule form, or as liniments and plasters. You can even order a Natural Aspirin Alternative and a Back Support Belt if needed.
Remedies for Rheumatic Pain and Kidney Weakness
According to TCM, the kidneys are the foundation of life. As we get older our aches and pains are usually associated with Kidney weakness.
By studying our pages on Chinese Medicine/Acupuncture and how it corresponds to Western neuroscience gives you an understanding of your body’s strengths and weaknesses. By asking questions you’ll know which of the patterns of disharmony is predominant in your particular situation, and you’ll learn about the acupuncture points and the herbal remedies to be used as well as other ideas for your Back Pain Therapy.
There are many Chinese healing herb formulas that alleviate pain as well as nourish the kidney function. One of them is ‘Golden Deficient Kidney Pill or Jin Kui Shen Qi Wan’, which is also used in impotence, infertility and sexual dysfunction. Check out ‘Kidney Rejuvenator, ‘Arth-X Platinum’ and ‘Back Soothe Wellness Oil’.
One great thing about the above products is that they are 100% natural herbal remedies. They carry no preservatives, no artificial colours and no chemicals.
One Western natural product I always have on hand, have used it myself and recommended to my patients through the years is DMSO. Gently rub a few drops of it on the painful area. It penetrates through the skin and flushes out toxins and excess fluids, and it eases the pain.
You can also use other natural home remedies such as Pau d’Arco, Burdock, Horsetail herb, Comfrey, Slippery Elm and White Willow bark, which can be brewed and drank as a tea for back pain relief.
You may buy the following Back Pain Remedies from a Chinese Herbalist:
Scandent Schefflera – Qi Ye Lian
Muscles and Bones Traumatic Injury Pill – Jin Gu Die Shang Wan
Rectify Bone Liquid – Zheng Gu Shui – a liniment
Plaster for Bruise and Analgesic – Die Ta Zhi Tong Gao
Golden Deficient Kidney Pill or Jin Kui Shen Qi Wan
But really, since 'Your Health is Your Greatest Wealth', the best investment you can make is to purchase our Expanded Return to Brilliance program. It's sure-fire Strategies and D.I.Y. Acupuncture Kit helps you heal most physical, emotional and spiritual dis-harmonies and keep you in top shape for years to come. Please click for the Return to Brilliance Outline!
Our non-invasive Acupuncture Stress Relief, Guided Meditation and other Holistic Healing Resources can help you.
Stress can cause many symptoms and our health seems always much more valuable after we lose it.
Isn’t that the truth, but not to worry!
Here you can learn to use our unique, yet proven Stress Relief Resources based on ancient Chinese Medicine that includes easy to apply Non-invasive Acupuncture.
You will learn about:
Chinese Medicine Stress Therapy
Stress causes
Stress illnesses
Anxiety Self Help
Acupuncture for Insomnia
Office Stress Relief with Guided Meditation
Our Acupuncture Stress Relief methods can help you build resilience in order to manage your life with its twists and turns.
What Is Stress?
From the dictionary: Stressed out – debilitated because of stress. The Condition or adverse circumstances likely to disturb the normal physiological or psychological functioning of an individual – distress caused by this.
Root: middle English >distress, old French >estress–narrowness, Latin >scrictus-strict.
Traditional Chinese Medicine Perspective on Stress.
Chi or Vital Energy flow is restricted.
Most physical-emotional-spiritual disorders manifest first as chi malfunction. Harmonious flow of energy, necessary for the nourishment and maintenance of tissues, organs and glands, is restricted.
Disorders of vital energy may later progress to affect blood, tissues and organs – through this our emotions and our spirit. This can then lead to physical illnesses such as cancer, which in Chinese Medicine is viewed as a blood stagnation.
Undisturbed chi flows naturally within the body, including the brain, considered to be the office, which directs the essential operations and energies. These, in turn, are governed by the heart.
The experience of a typical sciatica pain on the right side of my body stretched over a period of several years. Most of the time my lower back and leg pain was agonizing and I had to be super careful to keep my back, hip and leg warm at all times.
Searching for Pain Relief
When young, I was an avid cross country skier and remember having several minor accidents where I landed on my tail bone. I believe that those experiences were the beginning of my lower back pain, which through the years developed into a herniated disk and full-blown sciatica.
I searched and used many forms of therapy, particularly natural pain relief with Acupuncture and Chinese healing herbs, but the pain kept coming back when the weather was cold and damp. I had to be careful and use the above methods as soon as the first symptoms emerged.
Sciatica Exercises
As in any form of back pain therapy, it is important for you to know what the cause of sciatica is before you design an exercise program. After the diagnostic assessment, an acupuncturist or a physiotherapist can be of help.
In my case I learned that moving and doing exercises is better than bed rest. My choice was to incorporate a few Yoga stretches into my Non-invasive Acupuncture and Chi Kung self-healing program. This combination was helpful for many years.
A Small Surgery to Relieve Pain.
As I mentioned earlier, the cause of my pain was a herniated disc pressing on the root of the sciatic nerve. Finally, a micro-operation was done, which relieved the pressure and pain. For this, I am extremely thankful to our Western medicine and the skillful surgeon who performed the task!
Just in case you or your loved ones back and leg pain are caused by a herniated or a degenerative disc, have this checked out by an MRI or X-ray. If your doctor recommends a micro-operation, please consider it for it is a safe, one-day procedure which can make you permanently free of sciatica.
Suggestions
My body is still sensitive to cold and damp, and I continue to use the DIY acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, but now as a strengthening and preventive measure. This way my body stays completely pain-free and supple, I don’t get colds, I have good stamina, and I am happy. And I wish the same to you!
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the kidneys are the foundation of life. As we get older the aches and pains we experience are usually associated with Kidney Yin and/or Yang weakness.
One or a few visits to a well trained Chinese Medicine doctor in your area could give you an understanding of your body’s strengths and weaknesses. By asking questions you would know which of the patterns of disharmony are predominant in your particular situation and learn about the needle-less acupuncture for healing and rejuvenation.
Please read and purchase our strategies and tools, which will enable you to live in glorious freedom from all pain. Click to see the program outline:
Before writing about ancient Chinese Medicine and its comprehensive knowledge, I like to share with you some of my own thoughts related to it.
To me working with it is like drawing water from a deep well, I have to prime it every time in order to bring up its clear water.
This means that working with an individual with a disharmony, a connection must be made to his/her Original Source Chi as well as to that of the greater cosmos. The goal is to fit into the workings of the great Vital Energy – Wu Chi. Only then can we truly help and be helped.
My sincere hope is that you can experience the balanced awareness that is necessary for complete healing of yourself and those you love.
In order to do this a silent and receptive state of mind is required. Without this receptivity, understanding the intricate patterns of dis-harmonies cannot become clear.
Intellectually we can gather information and apply it, we can even experience temporary relief, but ultimately our intuitive channel must become clear for lasting healing and wellness.
Therefore I’m asking you to open up your consciousness to the kind of knowledge which I searched for (and still do), through my studies of the ancient Chinese Medicine in the eighties.
And in addition to having been trained as a Healing Tao instructor by Mantak Chia, I have explored many teachings, been with Sufi masters and studied spiritual texts including writings of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and the Chinese classic ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower’ and most recently ‘In the Light of Truth’ by Abd-ru-shin.
All of them require a shift in consciousness every time I read them.
When I decided to study ancient Chinese Medicine in depth after reading the Huang Di Neijing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine), I realized that here is a health system through which I can bring some of my spiritual understanding into a usable format.
Later, when I began to practice Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), I found that with each individual with whom I worked, we sought for ‘the main thread of the fabric’ that connects us to the ‘tone vibration’ present in all and everything.
Medicine Tao. The comprehensive and profound knowledge gathered and presented in the books on ancient Chinese Medicine carry a unifying message of the micro-macro cosmic universe.
The question of effective acupuncture and specific herbs for health and healing were important to the ancient acupuncture doctor.
But equally important was how to guide the individual toward ‘Tao of Health’, a harmonious lifestyle by daily use of natural healing foods and remedies found in his environment.
Instructions were given how to clear the energy system of the body in order to unify its function with the laws of nature and the greater cosmos.
Helping the person understand this goal of unity, even to inspire him to work toward longevity and the glorious destiny of Enlightenment, a birthright of every human being, was an important aspect of acupuncture doctor’s work.
In the light of our modern knowledge, writing these pages is a modest but sincere attempt toward this noble goal.
Without the desire to understand the whole, the treatments we learn to give ourselves and those we love will be patchwork. They cannot last without this deep commitment to the comprehensive physical-emotional-spiritual well-being.
Unifying Logic of TCM
As you read about the ancient Chinese Medicine you’ll discover that although it is less analytical than our Western medicine, it is brilliant in its unifying logic. And I believe that by fully understanding this we can work toward permanently satisfying results.
Like most of its counterparts in other countries, Traditional Chinese Medicine evolved through the millenniums as a reflection of the culture and the philosophical-religious outlook of its people.
Tao, the Way of Harmony, is the directive and foundation of the mysterious intermingling of ‘heaven, earth and man’. Chinese Medicine describes health and illness as phenomena in relation to Tao’s natural laws operating in all Creation.
Constantly Forming Vital Energy or Chi
Central to TCM is the concept of Vital Energy or Chi, which constantly creates itself anew in a myriad of forms, – yet in its essence is one – therein lies its paradox. However, when correctly understood it also reveals its beautiful and simple logic.
Huang Di Neijing is a summary of the medical practices and theoretical knowledge up to 500 to 300 BC when it was compiled by unknown authors.
Confidence to Conquer Illness
The book says that in order to completely heal a person, acupuncture, herbs and the other modalities are only one aspect of the treatment. There must also be integrated within the patient in other ways.
“When people lack the confidence to conquer illness, they allow the Spirit to scatter and wither away. They let their emotions take control of their lives. They spend their days drowned in desires and worries, exhausting their Jing essence, their Chi and Shen spirit. Of course then, even with these other modalities, the disease will not be cured.”
As a product of a long process of synthesizing one discovery with another, one region with another and one dynasty with another, Neijing provides the basis for the massive medical knowledge compiled through the later centuries.
Adaptability of TCM
Because of this Chinese Medicine’s ability to adapt, it’s principles based on the Law of Yin and Yang – and all that it contains – are applicable even in our changeable conditions and discoveries of the Western Medicine.
In my over twenty-five year practice of TCM, I did not discover even once any contradiction between Chinese Medicine and its Western counterpart. Instead, I found that they can complement each other in a supportive way when the principles are understood and practices properly applied.
