Sciatica and Beginnings

     In acupuncture school at the Tai Sophia Institue, we had a clinical phase there at the end where we had to do 90 treatments and at least ten different individuals as a requirement to graduate. My first patients (as well as my wife) had back and sciatica issues, enough so that I was the unofficial go-to guy in clinic at the time to consult on those matters. I didn’t plan it that way, I would have chosen smoking cessation or weight loss or something that it seems everyone was interested in.

     The upshot was that I became very comfortable with things associated with sciatica treatment, things like where’s Jumping Round, GB-30 located (close to the hip joint), is cupping indicated (induce a vacuum into a glass ball with a lighted alcohol-soaked cotton ball - very dramatic!), how to introduce heat into the area (on a big needle with burning moxa), what are the related points, how do you situate the patient for treatment (on their side), how do you maintain the site with draping and obtain access to what you need to while maintaining their dignity?

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He who lives in the present lives in eternity. - Ludwig Wittgenstein