Did y’all enjoyed the Halloween the past weekend?
Today’s article fits just right for this theme — gross blood…
In Oriental Medicine, we aim to achieve the smooth flow of patients’ energy and blood. Where there is such stagnation it starts obstructing your system and causing the pain, feeling sluggishness, sickness or “something just not right” feeling.
Spider veins are visible sign of such blood stagnation we can easily observe.
Spieler/varicose veins are often found on the thighs, backs of the calves, or the inside of the leg. When I treat my patients one of the important body parts I examine is the conditions of their calf muscles. Is it in a good shape or is it too tight, too soft, too firm or too loose, is there pain with palpation, and if there are varicose/spider veins.
The blood that carry oxygen and nutrients are distributed from our heart to the whole body. When the blood returns to the heart through the veins, healthy muscle activity of calf and leg do the important job as they have to send the blood back to our heart from our lower body against the flow of gravity.
This explains the importance of our daily walking instead of driving everywhere, and taking stairs instead of elevators. Massaging and giving regular finger pressures to calf muscles also helps the blood circulation to entire body!
Varicose veins can be formed from number of reasons, but they are certainly harder to be seen in healthy individuals. Blood flows are totally obstructed around the veins and the stuck blood is no longer healthy, and may cause problems mentioned earlier.
In Oriental Medicine, puncturing skin with lancet and drawing blood (Blood Letting) is one of our method to promote the movement of the blood flow. I had a patient with extremely tight and bad neck pain that he couldn’t turn his neck. He had spider veins all over his lower legs. I incorporated Blood Letting into the treatment and his neck softened and he was able to turn his neck.
These pictures were taken recently. A female patient with hip pain that also had very tight and painful calf muscles with spider veins. Upon puncturing the veins blackish colored blood started to flow then followed by bright red blood. Cupping was placed on the puncture site for 5 minutes.
Like the previous patient experience, the condition of calf muscles and taking care of the veins can have surprising effect to the aching and problem area of our body both internally and externally by promoting the blood flow. Although it might not solve a condition completely it is certainly a worthy practice we all can do.
If you notice that your calf is tight and painful, and also noticing the spider veins please consult and get proper treatment at Japanese Acupuncture.
Happy Belated Halloween!!
