Magically Effective Acupuncture from Master Tung to Dr Tan: What We See Is Just A Tip of An Iceberg

In my post: The Most Effective & Cost-Wise Therapy for Fibromyalgia, I talked about how a randomly controlled trial conducted by American researchers on acupuncture for fibromyalgia (FM) demonstrated that:

• A simple technique - tapping the skin with a toothpick is more effective and safer to treat the patients with FM than genuine acupuncture.
• The genuine acupuncture, regardless whether right acupoints used or wrong ones used, was the least effective compared to faked forms of acupuncture.

I further talked about what insight these results, in my view, brought to us: a new window is open to a “hidden” science:

Genuine Trick Works, Yet The Faked One Even better

A true therapy works, more or less, but its snake oil counterparts perform even better and safer, therapeutically and cost-wisely. This phenomenon as demonstrated in the study by American researchers Assefi NP et al (2005) opens a new small window, through which we can see a tip of an iceberg -- the “hidden” truth of acupuncture science.

Following this post, I answered a few questions from my readers Ahmad and Mark. They raised questions which helps me better understand my reader's needs. I cited these questions and my answers below, hoping this may help more readers see the tip of an iceberg – the “hidden” truth of acupuncture science.

Is There A New Acupuncture System?

Ahmad:

Your writing style is garnished with clinical competence. I have always looked forward to reading your work.

Brook:

Hi, Ahmad, Im happy you may have found my post provide some useful info. What I found or observed are just a tip of iceberg. I believe the readers like you will find more after they have done their own testing on what I found about the "hidden" truth of acupuncture science.

Ahmad:

I have been using the works of Dr, Richard Tan and Master Tung. Really fascinating works as it never fails. At first I thought you were using their work but as I follow on I realised you were bringing in more of what you found yourself. Permit me to ask. Are you trying to introduce a new system?

No New System Beyond Neijing Acupuncture

Brook:

I have no capability to establish a new system outside Huandi Neijing. What I am working on is to sweep away the dust covering the jewels - Miu-Ci system in Huandi Neijing. Master Tung's is a small piece of Miu-Ci. Dr Tan's is a more systematized and greatly scope-widened "Master Tung" but with a differently conceptualized meridian frame. When you use Master Tung's or Dr Tan's, you are using nothing new but a very small portion of the millennia old Miu-Ci. The Miu-Ci is a dinosaur. Master Tung's and Dr Tan's are a piece of bone of that dinosaur.

If you fully understand what Miu-Ci is and its related principles, there would be no limit any more for you to figure out almost unlimited options to treat a specific disorder, once you know on which nociceptor terminal the disorder is located (any type of nociceptor but not limited to pain nociceptor).

No Acupoints From The Very Beginning

The KEY is very simple: there are no acupoints from the very beginning. Or in other words, every millimeter on the body can be an acupoint.

Ahmad:

True. Because the more I research and practice I see points are not really necessary. Then reading your works made it even clearer. Pls what do you think is possible in the case of limitations in using acupuncture? How do you know a particular region work for any case? For cases like Ascites which could have several causes how would you approach it? Sincerely, I look forward to the day I will start contributing to your works. Thanks

Brook:

Let me answer each of your questions.

What Conditions Can Acupuncture Handle?

• what do you think is possible in the case of limitations in using acupuncture?

You mean what case acupuncture is unable to handle? I am not sure. But I am pretty sure about what conditions acupuncture can help with ( "handle" here means to relieve the symptom and at the same reverse the pathogenic process). It can handle any ailment or illness accompanied by abnormal sensation (pain, tender, soreness, numbness, itching, nausea, hot flush... to name a few) that we have already known which body part caused that abnormal sensation perceived by the brain.

The key idea is that acupuncture works on neural network. The neural network generates sensation and controls various normal biological processes. The instant effect of Neijing acupuncture can only be explained by the speedy transmission of the change of action potential through neurons.

Where to Put Needles?

• How do you know a particular region work for any case?

This is a big question. The answer lies in all the scattered pieces of jewel "hidden" in Huandi Neijing and also "hidden" in many texts or other classics after Huandi Neijing, written by many people in the last 2000 years, including Master Tung's and Dr Tan's stuff.

Oliver W Holmes (1809-1894), a physician and professor at Harvard University teaching anatomy and physiology, laments that the history of practical medicine resembles an endless task of filling with water a vessel that had no bottom:

“‘Experience’ had been, from time immemorial, pouring its flowing treasures into buckets full of holes. At the existing rate of supply and leakage they would never be filled; nothing would ever be settled in medicine.”

A jewel-made magic mirror was broken into thousands of tiny pieces and scattered everywhere. I am still in the process trying to put the pieces together. I am just standing on our ancestors' and many great people's shoulders to do the job. Otherwise, I knew nothing.

• Ascites? a million dollar question! will talk it in another post.

Any Spoon-Fed Way to Learn The "Lost" Miu-Ci?

Ahmad:

What materials would you recommend for Miu-Ci?

Brook:

Unfortunately, there are no materials already prepared by some scholars which tell you even the basic principles about Miu-Ci except Haungdi Neijing, as no big-name scholars in Chinese medicine history who have been able to correctly understand what Miu-Ci is, not to speak the scholars outside China who are unable to read Chinese.

But you may figure out something from Master Tung or Dr Tan's acupuncture.

Master Tung was almost exclusively using Miu-Ci, more exactly, he was using a “compromised” Miu-Ci. But himself seemed not realize he was using Miu-ci. Dr Tan might, I'm pretty sure, have realized it, but he never mentioned it, obviously because he did not think he need to do so as his audience students were almost 100% from TCM world, so he choose to place his Miu-Ci into a frame under the guise of “false” meridians.

Dr Tan's "Faked" meridians are all belt-shaped regions jointly covering up the entire body surface but not the .1mm-wide fine lines as depicted in acupuncture text books. By using "faked" meridians, Dr Tan made his audience from TCM world less uncomfortable in acceptance of his heretic ideas. Though Dr Tan himself did not believe at all those thin line meridians from TCM textbooks. As he once said:

• 'everywhere are acupoints',
• “give me a good enough pair of glasses and I’ll take any cell on your body and image or mirror it.”

Mark:

Teishin? [referring to the toothpick used in treating fibromyalgia (FM)]

Brook:

Yes. Teishin is a Japanese translation of Chinese Di Zhen (鍉针), a blunt tipped needle, which was one of the 9 types of acupuncture tools described in Huangdi Neijing. Among the 9 types, 3 blunt tipped tools including Teishin can produce a mild and slow therapeutic effect, in sharp contrast to the instant & strong effect produced by the small sharp needles (微针) when miu-ci (繆刺) is performed. Unfortunately the most powerful miu-ci, a true jewel of wisdom of Chinese physicians in the era prior 200 BC, has been buried in the dust of history since Huandi Neijing came into place until present.

Mark:

looking forward to more of your miu-ci clinical examples

Brook:

All the examples I talked so far are in the category of Miu-Ci. More coming. Stay connected.

Final Words

The Miu-Ci in Neijing acupuncture is a dinosaur. Master Tung's and Dr Tan's are a piece of bone of that dinosaur. With Miu-Ci -- a magic bullet healing art, even with a tiny portion of it, it is possible for every clinician in the world to become an magician in their patients' eyes. Critical thinker or curious readers may want to read more --click here ---about how happy a patient would be if he or she is lucky enough to have a magician-like doctor in their life.

References

Assefi NP et al, A randomized clinical trial of acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture in fibromyalgia. Ann Intern Med. 2005 Jul 5;143(1):10-9.

Huangdi Neijing: Suwen 6, On Yin & Yang (阴阳离合论); Suwen 41, On low back pain by needling therapy (刺腰痛)；Suwen 56, On the skin as a body part (皮部论); Suwen 62, On Stimulation of Main Trunk Blood Vessels (调经论)；Suwen 63, On miu-ci (缪刺论).

#acupuncture #huangdineijing #acupuncturescience #seektruth #toothpick #fibromyalgia #mythofacupoints #atipofaniceberg