Needle shock/anesthesia?

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He Geoff,

 

I've generally have thought about needle shock as a inappropriate movement of qi

to the surface of the body in response to the strong stimulus of the needle.

When wei qi/yang is poorly grounded in blood/ying and floats. This movement

disturbs then shen, as it is a rarified substance it gets caught up in the

movement. The movement of qi toward the needle/surface is what is expected with

obtaining qi at a point, it becomes problematic when blood, heart qi, or perhaps

" stomach qi " (deeper postnatal qi) is weak and unable to balance the tidal

movement towards the surface, creating a temporary vacuity and unconsciousness.

 

Consciousness in CM is largely due to the shen's engagement with the senses and

proper seating in the heart and it is lost when the shen is driven off by heat

(which causes frenetic movement and makes the heart/blood ground of the shen

less habitable) or shock or sudden fright (which scatters qi and presumably

other rarified substances like then shen). Heart qi/yang also functions to grasp

the shen, so heart qi/yang vacuity can lead to timidity or fearfulness (as per

Ht GB qi vacuity), and presumably make the shen more prone to being dislodged.

One can also loose consciousness when the shen's access to the senses is

occluded by phlegm or static blood or some other pathological product, as per

the more traditional closed collapse syndromes, though I can't think of a clear

mechanism for this to contribute to needle shock.

 

I haven't had to many cases of needle shock, but it does bring up another

phenomena. I have observed that many people who have general anesthesia end up

with a disrupted qi dynamic, possible symptoms being: sluggish feeling,

depressed affect, heavy limbs, heavy head, headache, disrupted bowel function,

etc. Pulse varies substantially but is generally weaker then usual and the

tongue doesn't tend to respond much. Typically they respond very well to one or

two very minimal treatments (needle with mild stimulation at bai hui to restore

the ascent of clear yang and sometimes moxa in the cv4-6 area) which seemed to

me like a reasonable pair of points to kickstart the qi mechanism. I asked an

OB-Gyn surgeon I knew how many people had problems like this and he said a fair

number but didn't really have a sense of a percentage. My question is: what is

the mechanism of the anesthesia that is causing the shutdown? Originally I was

thinking a super heavy settling effect, which would be stagnating, but lately

I'm not so sure... Another aspect that much be at work is that all of these

patients have been coming after abdominal laproscopic surgery for various GYN

issues, which involves pumping air into the body cavity... has anyone else seen

this effect, and what do you think about it's mechanism and treatment?

 

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

Par

-

Al Stone

Friday, August 10, 2007 6:06 PM

Re: Needle shock

 

 

For the Western approach to " needle shock " , look up " vasovagal reaction " . As

for the TCM explaination, that's a good question. Never really thought about

it. " Collapse of yin " seems a little bit extreme. Perhaps something like

" heart qi loosened " or something like that.

 

-al.

 

On 8/10/07, G Hudson <crudo20 wrote:

>

> Hi all,

> So, I've been in practice for a bit, and have had a few needle shock

> patients once in a while. Usually anxious, low blood pressure,

> skipped breakfast, treatment in a massage chair - you get the picture.

> Typically, they start to feel nauseated, then faint, eyes roll up,

> and then breathing gets real shallow. When they come too, they get

> very hot and sweaty. What is this in TCM terms and Wx terms? Is this

> collapse of Yin in TCM and syncope in Wx med? We were just taught how

> to manage 'needle shock', but I never really understood it very well

> from TCM's standpoint.

>

 

--

, DAOM

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.