Meridians is the most important concept of acupuncture. My patients often ask me “Even though pain is generating shoulder, why you put acupuncture on my feet?” If you understand meridians, you can find an answer easily.
Energy(I call Qi, pronounced “chee”) is circulating the body. There is the pathways which the energy circulates. Those are meridians. There are 14 main meridian pathways throughout the body. Each is connected to specific organs and glands. You can see the liver meridian on the left picture.
The Liver meridian is circulating the genital area. Because of that, Problems of genital area(such as enlarged prostate, leukorrhea, etc) can be treated through the liver meridian. The liver meridian starts at big toe. So I put acupuncture on the feet and can treat enlarged prostate.
However, location of meridian can explain only the small part of application of meridians. I usually treat stress, anxiety, headache, eye problems, hypochondriac pain, muscle spasm, IBS(irritable bowel syndrome) through the liver meridian.
Here is the testimonial from the patient for IBS
“Suffering from IBS for more than 10 years & trying different treatments without any result, I started to believe that I have to live with it ! Stress was one of the main reason of my problem which I couldn’t control it. As a newcomer to Vancouver, I had a stressful life. The IBS has got worse & worse. A friend of mine proposed me to try acupuncture treatments. I found GreenLeaf Clinic. This was the beginning the end of all my suffers during these years. After 2nd session I felt better. I had no usual pain. After 7th session I started to enjoy from a normal life. The IBS was controlled. Acupuncture treatments worked for me ! Professor Byoungjin Na, I’m very grateful for what you have done. Thank you for changing my life.”
When I first saw her, she complained severe abdominal pain and frequent bowel movements especially in the morning. As she said, stress affect her a lot. According to Eastern Medicine theory, stress firstly affect the liver and liver meridian. The liver has a function to regulate the Qi. If that function has problem, the Qi is stagnated. This condition is called ‘The Qi stagnation’.
The Qi stagnation usually occur heart burn or IBS at digestive system. I treat the liver meridian and release the Qi stagnation. Therefore we had very good results. Pain for almost 10 years was gone in one month with acupuncture treatment. After that, she visited the clinic once a month for following check up.
