Tried and True

Dear Patient,

I treat a lot of patients with lower back pain, most of whom respond quite well to acupuncture. But I remember one patient who wasn’t getting much relief. I’d treated him several times using my tried-and-true lower back pain points, and he'd improve a little, but he still had lingering pain and limited mobility.

One day he came in and his seasonal allergies were really bothering him—sinus congestion, runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes and the like. It was making him miserable. So I decided to forget about the lower back pain and just concentrate on opening up the sinuses, calming the histamine response, and getting him some allergy relief.

And wouldn’t you know it—the next time he came in, he told me he’d had significant improvement in his low back pain after that last treatment, more relief than he’d had after any previous treatments. So my sinus points worked for his low back pain. Go figure.

Sometimes our tried-and-true solutions don’t perform the way we expect them to, but we keep using them because they’ve worked in the past. When tried-and-true doesn’t work, maybe it’s because our assessment is flawed, or because we’re making assumptions when we need to dig a little deeper. Or, maybe we need to step away and shift our focus to a new problem for a while.

Tried-and-true methods don’t always need to be abandoned, but sometimes it’s good to let them rest.

Love and gratitude,

Your Acupuncturist