A New American Acupuncture - Acupuncture Osteopathy

Acupuncture pain management should be a routine part of any acupuncture student's training, and the public at large should be right in assuming, as they do, that acupuncturists are highly effective in the treatment of pain and its various dysfunctions. Yet many acupuncturists freely admit that, while they can treat acute pain effectively and rapidly, chronic pain more often than not fails to improve in any significant fashion using the currently dominant acupuncture methodology.

"(...) I realized our students had no idea of how to touch the bodies of their patients to directly assess the status of these patients' meridian system. (...) As I continued to clarify my ideas about and experience of acupuncture, it became clear to me that a hands-on approach emphasizing palpation of constricted areas of the body is fundamental in the practice of meridian acupuncture. (...) The famous physician Sun Si-miao stressed the need to treat a shi (tender) points when treating pain conditions because these points, not the textbook ones, are where the qi has become blocked and stagnant. What is acupuncture if not treatment to regulate the flow of qi through the meridian systems of the organism by releasing blockages on the surface of the body ? (...) I hope to convey the spirit of this rediscovery of tender points and the crucial role acupuncture can play in mainstream pain management."

This book includes: The return of the body and the importance of touch; Tender points revisited; Root - branch treatment principles, distal - local acupuncture; Myofascial chains; Somatovisceral - viscerosomatic pain - dysfunction; A tender point acupuncture protocol for pain management; The dorsal zone, The lateral zone, The ventral zone; Acupuncture - dry-needling; Acupuncture tender point therapy for acute, recurrent - chronic pain.