The Role Of The Divergent Bladder Meridian In Gua Sha Therapy

If you want to know how Chinese Medicine can help treat arthritis, you need to first know how arthritis develops in the first place. The following is a very basic version of the different factors that can lead to arthritis.

According to the principles of Chinese Medicine, the human body has a natural ability to remove most of the toxins it encounters. If we breathe in or eat something toxic, no problem, the body simply processes it and eliminates it from its system. There is also a theory in Chinese Medicine in which adverse emotions such as resentment, fear, bitterness, sadness, and anger can be harmful to the body. They likewise need to be released by the body in some way.

But what occurs if a person’s undergoing a really difficult time in his life, physically or emotionally? The natural ability of the body to clear out toxins might have problems coping that can overwhelm his body at that time. This can cause the toxins to remain within the body, and this time it has to figure out how to get rid of them in another way. Instead of allowing the toxins to harm the internal organs, Chinese Medicine believes that the body is extremely intelligent. It can collect the toxins in areas that will keep the body safe. These places are the joints. This is how the body keeps the body safe by housing the toxins into the joints rather than allowing them to endanger their lives!

Part of the amazing things about the way the body houses these toxins is that some sort of progression occurs. You don’t just rise up in the morning suffering from excruciating pain in your fingers all of a sudden. Perhaps, that’s not arthritis if that happens, but some persistent stress issue you’re dealing with at that time. Most arthritis sufferers find that the first joint pains they experience are in their neck, low back, and knees. Those regions are connected to the Bladder Meridian, which is the primary Meridian that “steers away” toxins from the organs to the joints (which, thus explains why it’s called a “Divergent” Meridian).

Divergent, Not the Movie, But the Meridians

The Divergent energy channels or meridians have a nonexistent affiliation with the wildly successful movie Divergent because they actually are genuine normal body mechanisms for diverging away toxins from the center, to keep you safe and alive.

After the neck, low back, or knees are affected, over the course of time, the problem could potentially aggravate (if your body is still unable to cope, more toxins may need to be stored). Those toxins must now be housed in various joints because the Divergent Bladder Meridian is no longer able to handle it. Therefore, the next body parts that the toxins will impact will be the shoulders and hips as well as the Divergent Gallbladder Meridian. If the Gall Bladder Meridian becomes eventually overwhelmed, it then finally goes into the feet and hands (Divergent Stomach Meridian), which is the time the swellings start to occur. Other problems such as deformities may develop which can increasingly impact your overall health further down the line.

In Chinese Medicine, the plan of treatment over time is to slowly expel the toxins from their storage areas by administering Divergent Meridian therapies. An ancient Chinese scraping technique known as Gua Sha in Tarzana can rid of toxins all over the skin. This is a vital aspect of this healing technique.

The practitioner can only perform this treatment for your arthritis if you are relatively strong or if you are in a good place in life (meaning emotional and physical). The responsibility of your body is to excrete and process the toxins which it would be unable to do when they were overwhelmed.

The Return Home

It takes time to find the road back from severe arthritis. Anything that impacts the shape of your joints is going to require time to recover. The Divergent Meridians only can take out the toxins from the joints. Other techniques are available that can be very helpful as well. I recently treated a woman suffering from severe Rheumatoid Arthritis. At first, she could hardly hold a pen or get to my office. Today, she almost runs up the stairs and is considering returning to her career of working in an office with her hands. The patient’s joints have very little pain. Once the toxins are eliminated, we were able to start doing other Chinese Medicine procedures to restore mobility to her joints. The practitioner applies Gua Sha on the patient’s extremely tense muscles which had been a major cause of her deformed joints to help treat the stuck patterns. Moxibustion was also included to transport fluid to the joints once the inflammation disappears. Also, acupressure therapy for restoring chi flow and vitality in the body were proven to be very helpful.

Some Of The Great Benefits Gua Sha Therapy Has To Offer

Oriental medicine experts define gua sha therapy as a traditional East Asian medicine healing technique that’s sometimes known in the West as ‘scraping,’ ‘spooning,’ or ‘coining.’ Gua sha uses a scraping device or tool that’s uni-directionally pressed stroked over a lubricated area of the body in order to deliberately produce a temporary ‘sha’ or petechiae, which represent a discharge of blood in the sub layer of the skin.

In simple terms, gua sha therapy includes the use of a scraping tool (bone or jade) to scrape the affected surface of the skin to generate bleeding capillaries or petechiae. Petechiae are not the same as bruises and instead of pain, the patient feels extremely relaxed and calm.

The Benefits of Gua Sha

The following are some of the great benefits gua sha therapy has to offer:

1. Alleviates pain

Gua sha therapy reduces inflammation in people, which can dramatically alleviate chronic pain and myalgia. Research has shown that gua sha possesses therapeutic effects especially when it comes to inflammatory diseases, such as chronic hepatitis. This is the time when an inflammation of the liver can lead to premature death, over time. Regardless of health ailments and problems you’re suffering from, gua sha treatment can be useful to you.

2. Stimulates the immune system

Gua sha’s most promising benefits are its impact on the immune system. The immune system becomes activated when this treatment is performed. This speeds up the body’s natural healing processes. In Asian societies, gua sha is frequently used in cases of sicknesses to “allow the illness to escape.”

3. To Slow Down or Reverse Aging

Besides it wonderful therapeutic effects, gua sha can also be used to enhance the appearance of the skin. In this occasion, a much gentler type of gua sha procedure is used: this therapy:

(1) Lessens puffiness under the eyes
(2) Tightens the skin
(3) Smoothes wrinkles and fine lines
(4) Provides plump skin to give it a youthful glow

4. Does Not Use Needles

Similar to acupuncture in Marlton, gua sha provides relief to pain. It is a less invasive procedure, which makes it more appealing to those who have a fear of needles. This therapy is a more preferable choice than acupuncture for people of all ages, especially children.

Now that we know a few of the benefits gua sha can provide, you can talk about your treatment options with a qualified acupuncturist or massage therapist to see how this valuable healing technique can benefit you!

Practitioners should take the time to know your specific conditions to see if gua sha is the proper mode of treatment for you. It can be a great complementary treatment to either acupuncture or massage therapy.