What kind of pain do you have?

Hopefully, none! However, if you do suffer from pain, acupuncture, Asian bodywork (shiatsu, acupressure, tuina) and Chinese herbal medicine have been successfully eliminating pain by addressing the root causes for thousands of years.

In simplistic terms, acupuncture moves “Stuck Qi” or energy to remove pain. In actuality, it is more complicated than that.

Chinese medicine distinguishes between different types of pain, and the treatment will be different depending on what type of pain you have. For example, your pain may be due to:

1. Stuck Qi

2. Stuck Blood

3. Cold or Wind-Cold

4. Dampness or Phlegm

5. Heat

Often, pain is due to a combination of two or more of these factors, such as:

1. Stuck Qi and Stuck Blood

2. Stuck Blood and Cold

3. Cold and Damp

Let’s take a look at the first type of pain, Stagnant Qi:

Stuck (or “Stagnant”) Qi pain comes and goes. The pain might tend to affect one area primarily, such as your neck, head, back, stomach or intestines. But, the pain isn’t fixed in one exact location, such as a joint. One day, you might have pain and tightness on the left side of your neck, upper shoulder and jaw. A few days later, the other side hurts worse. Another day, you might have a transient pain in your chest. Or, your lower back goes into spasm. The pain feels worse:

1. After a stressful day at work

2. After a verbal confrontation with an adversary

3. When you’ve been stoically taking care of everyone else and neglecting yourself

4. While you study at your desk for hours on end without taking time to stretch and exercise

Stuck Qi causes “knots”. If someone were to rub your shoulders while you were having a Stuck Qi tension headache, they would say, “your shoulders feel like one big knot”. Stuck Qi can also feel like pressure building up.

Your body might feel bigger and bloated. The bloated feeling is like a tire being overfilled with air (not water, or edema). Intestinal gas, which can be painful, is often due to Stuck Qi. When a woman’s breasts feel big, swollen and sore before her period, this is due to Stuck Qi. Or tension headaches that feel like your head is in a vise.

Another characteristic of Stuck Qi pain is that it often feels better with movement and worse with inactivity.

When you don’t breathe fully, it is because you are holding in, or holding on to your negative emotions. When you are in this tense, angry, or depressed state, you sigh frequently. These are signs of Qi stagnation.

Emotional causes of Stuck Qi include: chronic anger, resentment, frustration, impatience, perfectionism, brooding, obsessing, worrying, setting overly high standards and feeling “driven”, being overly self-sacrificing or stoic (which builds resentment and bitterness over time, whether or not this is expressed).

Physical causes of Stuck Qi include: sedentary lifestyle, overeating, excessive studying (such as for school), overwork (especially mental work), poor ergonomics in the work environment, wearing overly constricting clothing such as high heel shoes, repetitive strain, environmental toxins, structural imbalances (such as scoliosis or short leg syndrome).

Shiatsu and acupuncture are excellent treatments for Stuck Qi. The acupuncturist determines the exact locations (meridians of energy channels) where the Qi is stuck and then stimulates points along those channels, which act as pressure valves to release the Qi. Relief often comes quickly, even instantly. Follow up visits address the cause of the Stuck Qi so that the tendency for the Qi to get stuck in certain areas is gradually eliminated.

I will address the other types of pain in future articles. Stay tuned…