Scars – important in Kiiko Matsumoto style acupuncture
If you go to a doctor and have a scar that is hurting, infected, bleeding or weeping or open, then the doctor will take note, but go to the doctor with other problems, headaches, odd pains, emotional problems, joint pain, terrible periods – did your doctor ever ask to examine your scars?
In Kiiko Matsumoto style acupuncture, scars have a high priority and palpating, examining and enquiring about them is something that Kiiko writes a lot about and practices in her clinic, as she has vast clinical experience that shows that scars can have profound impacts on one’s health. Yet as I was training in Five elements and TCM acupuncture, scars were never really discussed at all!
I will talk about two of my recent cases that illustrate the reasons that Kiiko thinks scars matter, but use pseudonyms!
Amy was a 35-year-old woman who came for treatment for her bad period pains and PMS. As she entered the clinic the dark black shadows under her eyes and her evident weariness and lassitude were obvious. She told me that the start of her menses at 12 was the beginning of hell on earth for her. Over the years she had pain, terrible mood swings, bleeding so heavy she had to have blood transfusions, endometriosis and the list went on! Nothing in her medical history or my thorough Kiiko style diagnostic palpation and examination of her indicated any major disturbances. Suddenly I noticed a faint scar in the centre of her forehead, I pressed it and she said it was sore and then she suddenly remembered that when she was 9 years old, she had walked into a full-length mirror and cut her forehead and had forgotten all about it as it never troubled her.
This led me to consider a possible ‘cause’ scenario; this wound had healed nicely on the surface but underneath a small focal infection had lingered for over 23 years, disturbing her nearby Pituitary gland, the master hormonal gland and hence disturbing her entire hormonal balance and possibly leading to her period ‘hell on earth’. So apart from also treating any other constitutional weaknesses and blockages found in my diagnostic examination, I also treated the forehead scar with Kawai ‘diode rings’ (more about these in a later blog) and located other points that fully cleared her painful residual forehead reflex pain. She returned for another treatment two weeks later as a different person, her dark eye shadows were greatly reduced, she had no gynae pain, she said not only did she feel a new person, but she had so much energy that she got promoted at work. She needed a few more treatments before she felt she was totally better, but then returned a few weeks later bringing her mother - who wanted treatment for her auto-immune conditions!
All in all, a real illustration of the disruptive effects from just a little innocent looking scar!
Susan was a 55-year-old woman who came for treatment for anxiety and panic attacks. She entered the room looking more like a 70-year-old, bent forward and stooped. The Kiiko style palpatory diagnostics showed no major problems and I carried out a constitutional treatment that I knew would help her presenting problems. I pressed along her ‘C’ section scar (she had delivered 3 babies by the same ‘C’ section) and despite the wound looking clean and healed, we were both surprised that I found several painful areas along the scar over 20 years since her last baby. I then treated the scar with a Kawai diode chain and some needles and she left in a cheerful mood. A few days later she phoned to say that her ‘C’ scar had started weeping pus like fluid, without pain. I advised her to cover it with a clean dressing and watch the area and go to see her GP if it turned red or inflamed.
She came for her second appointment a few weeks later and as she entered the room I saw her as a new woman, tall and straight and she was delighted. It appeared that her body had, over the years, unconsciously compensated for the partially healed ‘C’ section scar pain by bending forward bit by bit and my treatment had cleared it, enabling her to straighten up, and this was a bonus as her panic attacks had also stopped and she felt a lot less anxious already after just one treatment.
As you can see, examination of existing scars should be a part of any acupuncture treatment and should be considered especially in patients that had surgeries that occurred when the patient was a baby or a child, because they may also have been strained or stretched as the baby or child became a lot older and a lot bigger!