Yesterday I finished teaching an AA course in Switzerland. A fun and motivated class over 2 days. A real pleasure. For sure I am tired after 2 days of talking, laughing and also exchanging ideas, but it was worth it. I love it.
Subcutaneous Needling
One question asked was: could you do subcutaneous needling if you want to reach several points at the same time? Naturally we are talking about the SCS level. Hmmm, I never thought about that way of working which doesn't mean it can't be done. My answer or a part of my answer was: try it and let me know about your observations and results.
This is one of the interesting parts of teaching. New ideas I have not thought about it. AA offers so many possibilities to treat a person. There are so many ways to reach your goals. Every day when a colleague works with AA, new discoveries will occur.
You have your knowledge about the magic turtle, the location of the points and for sure also your intention about the needle depths and even more.
That could be called you are working with your "frame ".
After that all the fine tuning will be very personal and adapted to each case.
Working on the belly amazes me every day. You think you know "everything" and then -boom- something unexpected happens.
A person who is very needle-sensitive, an other one who is very ticklish....
Getting back to the question asked during the course. Subcutaneous needling
Subcutaneous Needling: my full answer
Here's my complete answer. In my experience it's more effective or even more elegant to work step by step. What does this mean?
If you want to treat a shoulder pain, for example, you use your point-combination based on your diagnosis and also also on your palpation results. You may find some ashi-points which will invite you to use some shallow needling. Each of those needles should be placed accordingly to the knot/grain or thread you felt. Some of those structures can be very superficial, others a bit deeper. With each needle you adapt to the situation. You can even modify the depth during the session if necessary.
An elegant solution
That's what I call elegant. With a subcutaneous needle I see some difficulties in reaching all of those points. But.... (yes there is always a but) if you find that all those points are rather close to each other and on the same level, why not try and use the idea with subcutaneous needling.
To date I have not done it, but that is not a reason not to try. Hopefully I will soon find my perfect situation where I will be able to make a new trial of this. .
Keep an open mind and let's share our experiences and discoveries.
Click here for details of my Abdominal Acupuncture course.
