Technical Inforamtion

Written by Dan Brudnak:

Three blind men walk into a room with an elephant and are asked about the properties of an elephant.  One man feels the tail and says that an elephant is like a rope.  One feels a leg and says an elephant is like a pole. One feels the side and says the elephant is like a wall.

Three doctors are asked what is acupuncture....

————Aurum Nostrum Non Est Aurum Vulgi------------

In the AAMA, American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, it is required for members to be fully licensed physicians and we believe this makes a difference.  " Aurum Nostrum non est Aurum Vulgi" is the often forgotten motto of the AAMA.  It means our gold is not common gold.

What is the objective of medical treatment if not to help the patient to be comfortable and functional?  What else could you want?

The plethora of techniques of acupuncture lend one to believe there is more than one way to skin a cat.  One person uses Bioenergetics and another uses PENS, or Worsley-type Five Element, or TCM and yet another uses Auricular Medicine or Auricular Therapy and another uses Koryu or one of Dr. Richard Tan’s systems. The richness in the diversity is vast but we cannot loose sight of the object of or pursuit which is comfort and function for the patient.  So…..What is acupuncture?

In ancient times, as I understand it, the acupuncturist was the poor, bare foot country doctor.  The rich people used the Herbalists in town that made remedies according to the laws of Yin/Yang, Zang/Fu, or even 5 Element Paradigm.  I can relate to the poor barefoot country doctor because I am a poor country doctor -- but I wear shoes.  My patient base is Medicaid, Medicare, Indigent care, Hospice care and self pay/no pay. I use acupuncture on up to 20 patients per day for a wide array of illnesses and injuries in addition to using my allopathic medicine  to help patients.   I don't separate acupuncture patients from allopathic medicine patients and I don’t charge for acupuncture itself.  It is included in the office visit.

Often the patients that need the acupuncture the most are those least able to pay for it…. Now, as well as then.

 Therefore, I need to maintain a larger patient load per day in order to keep my office open.  I have limited time to do acupuncture with my patients.  I do not have the luxury of being able to spend an hour with each acupuncture patient as many acupuncture sessions are organized.  On Active Duty in the Air force as a flight surgeon, I had to do brief treatments as well.    Additionally, the patients and crew members need results quickly so they can return to work and feed their families.

It may seem counter intuitive, but, using quite a few different acupuncture techniques at one treatment session actually takes less time.  One can get results quickly, shorten the length of the treatments and reduce the number of treatments needed to get the patient functional and comfortable.   By taking care of patients well you will never suffer want.  You will have many more referrals from word of mouth about the patient’s relief.

The whole acupuncture treatment can take as little as 5 minutes and the patient often has immediate and lasting relief.  Some times I must employ additional modalities and sometimes patients do not respond at all but most often we find some kind of relief and it provides a starting point on the journey to the patient being functional and comfortable.

As I said, the patients very often get immediate relief and leave the office pain free.  I have them return within 1-2 days to address the muscle memory problems that often cause symptoms to recur or to treat a healing crisis that sometimes ensues.  Two treatments back-to-back on sequential days works to your advantage and to the advantage of your patient.  If they have further symptoms after this second treatment they are to come back right away because small problems are easier to fix than those that have built up over time.  If they have no problems they are to just go and have fun.  It works.

Here are the components of the five-minute acupuncture treatment:

Aeromedical Acupuncture, 5 Element Acupuncture, Battlefield Acupuncture, Auricular Medicine, Dr. Tan’s System One, a modified MAT-like procedure.

The patient then activates the treatments by walking sitting and walking again.  The patient rarely needs to disrobe and most of the treatments are given in a standing or sitting position.

AEROMEDICAL ACUPUNCTURE

 I developed Aeromedical Acupuncture during my time as an active-duty Air Force Flight Surgeon.  It consists of thirty-six tonifications on command points designed to bring pathology from deep within the patient to the surface [from yin to yang] where it can more easily be equilibrated.  Using an N, N+1 circuit and using N on yin and N+1 on yang on each meridian.   Tonification means that the needle is inserted quickly, turned/rotated clockwise and removed. [I don't bother to cover the hole] I have found the magnets as efficacious as needles in most cases.

Acupuncture is an electrically based therapy and is often called a form of “Energetic Medicine”.  The needles go under the skin, activate millivolt potential across the skin but more importantly conduct the electricity trapped in the active acupuncture point out of that point as if you were short circuiting a charged capacitor.  The magnets create an inductive field between the north and south poles and induct this same electric charge out of the active acupuncture point.  The points selected for Aeromedical acupuncture are called command points and lay between the tips of the digits, the Ting points, and the elbow or knee, the Ho points.   So long as you use command points, the selection of these points is very forgiving.  Try to select command points where the capacitance in the myofascial planes is greatest.  This could be where small muscles are occluding the normal flow of the interstitial fluid or where larger muscles occlude the channels of electrolyte within the myo-fascial plane that conduct the feedback current from our muscular contractions.  [please see notes on some of our earliest explanations of the mechanism of acupuncture presented by the Academy and Mussat inparticularly]

Aeromedical Acupuncture is a fusion of 5 Element Acupuncture and Bioenergetics.  Maurice Mussat was the pioneer for Bioenergetics and Joe Helms picked up the baton after him and started the movement in the USA.  Mussat described the body as a bag of electric generators immersed in electrolyte.  The circuitry is very complex because all the generators or motors, the muscles, are jumbled together with just a thin line of a channel containing electrolyte running in-between all of them.  A complex pattern of current is formed by the conduction of this current through the myofascial planes, the thin channel of electrolyte, and the current itself arises from the various inputs of current from the muscles and organs themselves.  This creates the meridian system.  Feedback circuits within this meridian system are essential to protect the devices, the muscles and organs.  This is illustrated if you hold a ceiling fan still while it is engaged.  The generator/motor will burn out due to not having the feedback current present when the blade is moving.  Parts of our body do the same thing if they are maltreated.

One can use needles or magnets such as Genesen magnets or Syogra magnets.  I use all three at different times depending on situations.  With needles, or magnets the patient gets the desired effect from this treatment and the patient often feels the results immediately. When using the Genesen magnets, you hold the two magnets like chopsticks and put the point of the North Pole magnetic pen apparatus as close as possible but not touching the point of the South Pole magnetic pen apparatus.  Try not to let the two instruments touch each other at all so that the maximum inductive field can be formed between the two poles. The needles use conduction to move Chi when they touch a point but the magnets move the bioelectric current, or Chi by induction as when transformers move AC current and voltage to our houses from power lines or like cordless phone chargers move electricity to charge cellphones.   The two closely spaced tips will pass over the skin and will fall into the Men, a small depression in the skin along the meridian.  The patient will often get an Ahshi sensation when you pass over the points.  Again, I believe that the needles stimulate the points by conduction and therefore discharge the inherent capacitance at the points whereas the Genesen magnets stimulate the points by induction using the intensified magnetic field and have the same effect.  The needles often have a more abrupt and often longer lasting effect but the Genesen and the Syogra magnets work very well and the patient has less discomfort.  If the magnets do not have the desired effect, one can easily redo the Aeromedical acupuncture treatment with needles very quickly.  Other methods are used to stimulate acupuncture points.  I know that lasers stimulate the points as well but I am not familiar with the proposed mechanisms except that the lasers of 810nm have been shown to stimulate mitochondria to accept an additional O2 instead of a nitric oxide molecule in the laboratory studies.  I rarely use laser for this particular type of acupuncture though it is very good for auricular stimulation, wound healing, neuropathy and sinusitis. I use my Category IV laser quite a bit.  I am convinced that the electromagnetic radiation  from burning Artimetis Vulgaris [moxa] is likely the same radiation coming from some lasers…especially those in the near infrared frequency bands like 820 nanometers but I have seen no studies.  Moxa is inconvenient for me and patients in my demographics do not like it so it is not something I pursue.

Aeromedical Acupuncture was put together my me while I was an active duty USAF Flight Surgeon.  I combined 5 element and Bioenergetic ideas and techniques to get a fast treatment that would not ground the pilots and crew.

FIVE ELEMENT ACUPUNCTURE

Worsely melded different techniques that he picked up in China. His parents were missionaries there as I understand it. Worsely was an Osteopath in England.  An osteopath in Britain as I understand it, is not like a D.O. here in the U.S.A., but rather more like a physical therapist.  At any rate, Worsley was a genius and his type of acupuncture is very powerful.  The Worsely 5 Element Acupuncture is an amazing technique.  It employs the basics of pulse diagnosis, 5 element interaction strategy, using a C.F. (Causative Factor), and undoing entry/exit blocks.  These elements are augmented by the genius of adding to the treatments the Seven Dragons and Aggressive Energy Techniques from other disciplines and has greatly added to the efficacy of this whole technique.  Points are almost always put in tonification and are removed as soon as they are put in, but the system amends itself well to the use of  Genesen or Soregen magnets.

After dealing with the blocks, we are ready to fortify the patient by treating the source, fire and water points on their CF.

The CF is the calling card of Classical Five Element Acupuncture.  The Causative Factor is such an unfortunate nomenclature for such a marvelous concept. It conveys a sense of the patient's pathology and I prefer to look at it as representing the patient's inherent strengths.  I will explain. When we are in the womb our mother provides for all our needs and we do not need to adapt at all.  Our mother does everything for us.  Once we are born, we must adapt and eventually something will break.  The first thing that breaks we fix the heck out of it and it becomes our favorite way to deal with anything that breaks.  It is the strongest leg of the five-legged stool that we call the five elements.  That is our CF.

Untraditionally, I use the Genesen magnets for all my Classical 5 Element points and the pulse diagnosis confirms the physiologic changes.  Using Genesen for these techniques reduces clinic time and patient discomfort and makes the interaction with the patient more rewarding.

It is such a relief to the patient as well as so gratifying to me to see when the patients feel an inner calm spread over them just as the final points are stimulated, especially with the Dragons treatment but also when balancing the CF.

 Now, there are not really only the five elements Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood.  Everything is on a continuum as is every other thing in nature--until you get to quantum mechanics of course [but few can understand quantum mechanics.  Even Stephen Hawking denies a full grasp of the subject].  In addition to using the elements in continuum, we are capable of using all 5 of the elements in a cycle within each element itself making this system infinitely flexible and complex.  For example, we can utilize the wood within the water meridian and the fire within metal etc.  However, often times we don't use all these options presented to us… and we don’t need to anyway.  Our mission is to optimize comfort and function, remember?

 The five elements are Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood.  Each has a plethora of attributes.  The only way in Classical Five Element Acupuncture to determine a person's CF is by CSOE, i.e., color, sound, odor, and emotion.  The color of the skin and color preferences of the patient demonstrate color.  The sound of the voice demonstrates sound.   The body chemistry represented in the odor of the sebaceous glands demonstrates odor.   And the over tone of consistent emotion in each patient shows the emotion of the person's CF.   Perception and processing of the concepts of color, sound and emotion are all done in the cerebral cortex and we do have a tendency to talk ourselves into and out of conclusions when we use this part of our brain.  Odor alone is processed in the olfactory system, which goes directly into the limbic system of the brain.  It is not sophisticated enough to lie… as much.  I believe odor is the most reliable source to determine CF. Common areas to smell the sebaceous glands in the body are the axilla, groin, rectum and feet.  The axilla is often altered with fragrances, and even though the dog in Dr. Doolittle said you never really know someone until you smell their butt, I don't want to smell butts or groins.  That leaves the feet.  Feet are also often enclosed in shoes and that can make it easier to get a reading once they are just out of the shoes.  I have found that it gets easier with practice… with a lot of practice.  The animals communicate this way all the time and it is a good thing to learn.

The five elements have a plethora of qualities.  Here is an outline of some of them.

Fire is summer, red color, laughing voice, burnt/ scorched odor, bitter taste and connection to others emotionally is a primary motivation.

Wood is spring,  green color shouting voice, petroleum odor , sour taste, and planning/organizing as primary motivation.

Water is winter, blue or black color, moaning voice, putrid odor or a sweet smell of a snow covered winter day winter day odor salty taste, and enduring, persevering or dare devil motivation.

Metal is fall, white color,  groaning voice, rotten odor, spicy taste, and achievement of quality as motivation.

Earth is harvest,  yellow color, singing voice, sweet odor, sweet taste, and nurturing as motivation.

It takes quite a bit of thought about these concepts to put it all together in a practical way, but once you get the knack it is invaluable.  One can put a constellation of symptoms together in meaningful ways when using this paradigm.

The following illustration may help with perspective on the elements as well.

 Imagine a tree.  The seed falls to the ground and is buried in the ground where it sleeps.  Spring comes and the young tree violently forces itself out of the seed shell just as a chick breaks through the egg shell.  In subsequent years it forces its roots through the earth and even through the concrete of sidewalks. Buds force to the surface of the branches and break forth into blooms.  These blooms are paler and greener than the flowers in summer but their fragrance pushes into the air overpowering the senses at times.  So comes Easter.   This is wood, spring, green, shouting, rancid, anger.

Then comes summer and the flowers become more brilliant and less fragrant.    Long days and pleasant nights inspire for connection of all the flora and fauna in the area.  Insects and animals are very active, bees pollinate, birds nest, people stay up in the evening socializing beneath the boughs, etc.  So comes memorial day, 4th of July, summer festivals  etc.  This is fire, summer, red, laughing, scorched, joy.

Then comes harvest.  The flowers are no longer brilliant but now they are pleasant and contentment comes to the garden.  There is fruit on the tree the bugs and animals slow down a little and nothing is rushed.  Mother earth is doting over all of nature which is, for the moment, safe in her bosom.  Labor day and summer festivals still prevail, but Thanks Giving is close at hand as well. The Canadian Thanks Giving is in October and is temporally better situated for the theme of this holiday.   This is earth, harvest, yellow, singing, sweet, contentment.

Autumn comes with the foreboding call to prepare for the up coming winter.  Leaves fall from the trees and stark preparation is the tone of the season.  Long days are lost and  there must be order to get preparations done.   Disorder simultaneously appears and there is dichotomy in the stark outline of the branches of the trees contrasting with the clutter of leaves at their base. This is the time of ghost stories and spooky weather.  An other worldliness pervades much of the background and so comes Halloween. This is metal, autumn, white, groaning, rotten, grieving.

Then comes the somber storing and sleeping to out last the harsh cold famine that is winter.  The storehouse sustains the tree and the sleeping seeds as they conserve life until the upcoming spring.  Sensibleness and conservative measures may predominate but recklessness may be at times incorporated if stores run out.  Worry can intrude on the prevailing tone, but the extreme strength and patience of enduring hope prevail.  So is Christmas and New Years.  This is water, winter, black or blue, moaning, putrid, fear.

Another model is such:

A wave goes through the same cycle starting in the cold deep powerful depths that correspond to winter and water.   Transitioning as it first overcomes the enormous inertia and breaks the surface of the ocean is spring and wood.  In the more shallow depths you can see the crests of the wave now foaming and brilliant representing the summer and fire.   The harvest and earth are when the wave balances on the beach and stillness and contentment reign.   As the fall of the wave draws it back to the depths from which it originated the cycle nears completion, hence comes the fall and metal.  The cycle is complete back in the depths as the powerful winter and water can start the cycle over again.

Our bodies follow these rhythms and movements.  Moreover, within each of these movements are all the rest in complete cycles.  In the spring, which is wood, the tree acts with each, the force of wood, the connection of fire, the contentment of harvest, the preparation of metal and the endurance of water.   The same is true in the winter, which is water.  In the winter, the tree will use patterns of action that can be characterized by wood, fire, earth, metal as well as water. The cycles within cycles within cycles are endless.  Even more confusing is the fact that each of the elemental phases is not discrete, but it is in a continuum.  We are dealing with the analog nature of things not with the inaccurate precision of the digital.

Remember always that this system of analysis is just the keyboard.  When we type on a keyboard, we see the letters but the computer sees only moments of charge or of no charge.   We call these states 1's and 0's but they are simply states of charge or no charge in data cells and micro circuits.  The next more palatable system from this binary notation is hexadecimal and then more complicated computer code but all the data is related in various states of charge and no charge in various data cells in the computer.   We would not be as able to manipulate and understand the data from a computer if all we saw was the moments of charge or no charge in the data cells so we made a short cut or a short hand notation to allow us to deal with the immense amount of information with which we have to deal.  Exploring the theory of the 5 elements is no different.  The scorched odor of the patient relates the chemical make-up of the patient's sebaceous glands and we could discuss it with molecular models relating to the cell wall receptors and intracellular milieu adapting to the environment.  That would take much more time and not be as practical as other ways.

Auricular Therapy, Auricular Medicine, and Battlefield AcupuncturE

 These two types of acupuncture are the new guys on the team. But they are superstars as well.  About 60 or 70 years ago a think group of brilliant innovators of our Art, some of them neurologists, noticed patients recovering from back pain after a Gypsy Lady cauterized a spot on the patient’s ear. The spokesperson for this group was Paul Nogier and the group included Dr Frank Bahr. These pioneers developed two types of acupuncture which are now generally performed on the ear but started out being performed on the nose as well. This is a celebration of the utility of Microsystems.  The Chinese adopted the auricular acupuncture after its initial development in central Europe.

AURICULAR THERAPY

For the first of the two of these techniques, Auricular Therapy, these pioneers mapped points for the effects they had.  This included the point used by the Gypsy woman which is now called Zero Point.  There are three homunculi, body maps, and their usage depends on the deepness or the phase of the problem being treated.  I generally just use the first phase homunculus.

Auricular Therapy has been mirrored successfully by Terry Oleson and the Chinese and, indeed, Dr Niemtsow has drawn on five of these points to make his excellent and efficacious Battlefield Acupuncture.

Auricular medicine developed after this within the brain trust that included Nogier and Bahr.  It relies on the Vasoautonomic Stimulus [VAS] or Vasoautonomic Reflex [VAR] that was demonstrated in a military hospital in a patient whose femoral artery was exposed from an injury.  The artery showed differences in the pulsations as he read a racy novel.  On further investigation, the artery pulsation changed in predictable ways with various challenges to the patients' homeostasis and in particularly to the patient's bioelectrically generated magnetic field.   This led to a technique of feeling the pulse as the body's magnetic field was challenged.  This pulse is not at all like the pulse felt to measure heart rate nor is it like the pulse used in Five Element Acupuncture.  The Amount of bioelectricity in the human body obviously would produce a magnetic field.  The Chinese called it Wei Chi. This magnetic field expands away from the body when the body is injured in some way and the more injury, the farther away from the body the magnetic field stretches.  This may be how hunting sharks find injured fish in dark muddy water.  With training, one can feel the Vas changes as certain ear points are tested.  Then these points can easily be treated with the Genesen magnets, regular needles or semipermanent needles.

As mentioned before, in Auricular Medicne,  points are not mapped but felt by zeroing in to the most active points as the doctor challenges the patient’s Wei Chi.  The doctor challenges the Wei Chi by moving the doctor’s hand at a certain speed toward the patient’s ear.  Some disciplines use certain “filters” instead of  the hand.   The advantage of this system is enormous when dealing with confusing problems because the Wei Chi can help you diagnose the core problem.  I may not know what is going on in each patient’s body, but most often the body can help make its own diagnosis.  It is a modality very worthy of investigating.

It may be challenging to look for the feedback of the Wei Chi in an objective evidence based medicine society, but even evidence based medicine has been found at times to be biased and there are invisible incidents that do not get noticed and can confound conclusions in each and every paradigm.

As the author of Life of Pi said "If you only believe what you see, what do you do in the dark?"

The VAS pulse was traditionally felt with the thumb.  There is a pulse in all of our fingers as demonstrated by the use of pulse oximeters so taking the pulse with the thumb is no longer a faux pas.  The thumb actually has more nerve endings and more sensitivity.

1. TAN’S SYSTEM 1

We will all miss Dr Richard Tan, not only for his significant contribution to our Art but for his ability to make learning fun.  Dr Tan had twelve systems but I generally only need to use his System One.  This I do using a piesoelectric stimulator and it is very effective and patients generally like it very much.  Dr. Tan’s System 1 incorporates concepts in line with Inverse/ Country technique and  relies of the  laws of Yin/Yang, Zang/Fu,  Qi/Blood Biologic Clock, and 5 Elements.

MAT, Muscle Activation Therapy,  is a copyrighted technique that is extremely effective and I am not so sure that the way I presently do it using my Genesen or Syogra magnets is kosher enough for me to call what I do MAT so I refer to what I do as MAT-like therapy.  MAT works on the principle of getting the muscle spindle, the nerve component of the muscle,  to contract in order to get the rest of the fibers in the group to relax.  If the  spindle is loose it sends signals to the fibers  to make them contract to prevent the joint from dislocating due to laxity of the joint.  By tightening the  spindle, the  other fibers  do not get the signal to contract as much and this causes relaxation of  spasms when done correctly. I did take the year long course which is 1/4 of the total MAT course,  and I do refer patients to a MAT therapist whenever I can…. It’s hard to find a clinician to whom one can refer at times when one is  living in the middle of nowhere but my hat is off to Allie Stillwell, easily the best MAT therapist I have ever known.

This is the summary of the Nuts and Bolts of how to do the treatment.

 One can use needles or magnets for any of the components to the 5 minute acupuncture treatment.  In my experience, needles tend to give a stronger electric signal, but they are often less palatable  to the patients due to discomfort and the patient’s perception of needles.  I do both and some request the needles but most like the magnets better.

I have used both Genesin or Syogra magnets and they both work well.  I would guess that any device of this type would work well.  The Genesen and Syogra magnets are long and thin and look like pencils.  One tip is North pole and the other tip is South pole.  I hold both the magnets like chopsticks so I can put the tips as close to each other as possible then place the pair of magnetic tips over the skin where the acupuncture points are located.  I do this to make the most focused and strongest inductive field to induct the Chi out of the acupuncture points under the skin where I place the magnets.  These work especially well in auricular points.

This is how to do Aeromedical Acupuncture.   It is very simple.  No matter how you stimulate the points, choose two yang command points and one yin command point for each meridian pair and tonify. That's it.  That is all there is to Aeromedical Acupuncture.   The meridian pairs are Small intestine/ Heart [Tai Yang/Shao Yin of the arm or Worsley II and I], Triple Heater/ Pericardium [Shao Yang/ Jue Yin of the arm or Worsley VI and V], Large Intestine/ Lung [Yang Ming/ Tai Yin of the arm or Worsley X and IX ], Bladder/ Kidney [Tai Yang / Shao Yin of the leg or Worsley III and IV], Gallbladder/ Liver [Shao Yang/ Jue Yin of the leg or Worsley VII and VIII ], Stomach/ Spleen [Yang Ming/ Tai Yin of the leg or Worsley XI and XII]. That’s all there is to it for that part.  

The Classical Five Element Acupuncture part of my 5 minute treatment starts with entry/exit block management and the technique Worsley borrowed called the seven dragon treatment. I just use the magnets to stimulate each of the pairs of points that connect the meridians as they correspond to their circadian rhythm.   The entry and exit points are documented in any number of popular texts.

The VIII- IX block is Liver 14 to Lung 1,

The XII-I block is Spleen 21 /Heart 1,

The IV-V block is Kidney 22 /Pericardium 1,

The II-III block is Small Intestine 19/Bladder 1,

The VI-VII block is Triple Heater 22/ Liver 1,

The X-XI block is Gallbladder 20/ Stomach 1.

The Internal Dragon treatment treats the 7 internal dragons, CV 15, Stomach or Worsley XI points 25, 32, and 41.  The external dragons, GV 20, Bladder or Worsley III on point 11, 23, 61.  Traditionally the needles are left in sedation but I generally treat with Magnets and this works very well… and immediately.  Patients notice the calm that comes over them right after getting the Dragons treatment.  It is my opinion that this treatment works on the sympathetic nervous system and turns off or turns down the amount of adrenaline in the body.  It helps amazingly well for PTSD as well.

Often I treat the C.F. by simply using the source points of the C.F. meridian and it’s yin/yang partner… i.e., if the patient is an Earth C.F. of the Stomach type (Worsely XI), I would treat the source point on both XI and XII (Spleen).  Sometimes one does not even have to treat the C.F.  The treatment works quite well just by unblocking entry/exit blocks and using the Dragons.  Again, the Aggressive Energy problem is nearly always covered with the Aeromedical Acupuncture.

Next, one employs Battlefield Acupuncture developed by Dr. Neimtsow while on active duty in the USAF.  I stimulate the 5 points with the magnets though feel free to use the semipermanent needles. 

[As I understand it, the gold needles are used because of the tonifying properties of the yellow metals and the sedation properties of the white metals but I have found that stainless steel is rather neutral and has served me well for all my semipermanent needle applications.  I have tried on many occasions to use other metals and have seen little difference between the tonification or sedation effects of the various needles but this is merely anecdotal to my experience.  As William Shakespeare put it, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and I am open to other opinions.]
These 5 points for Battlefield Acupuncture are taken from the mapping process in Auricular Therapy and are well documented, Cingulate Gyrus, Thalamus, Omega 2, Point Zero, and Shenmen.

Auricular Medicine follows.  Originally, I felt the radial pulse with my thumb as I passed my hand close to each ear.  This is the traditional way to check the VAS or the VAR.  One feels the pulse surge when the Wei Chi of the patient and the Wei Chi of the examiner collide.  I have another way of feeling the VAS as well.  Whatever method works for you will do well but it does take A LOT of practice and patience to master it.  It is worth it.   I use the magnets to stimulate the points the body asks for.

To do the Dr. Richard Tan System 1 part of my treatment, I use a piezo electric stimulator and systematically push the static electricity through the entire meridian system. Starting with Tai Yang of the leg or Worsely III or Bladder meridian depending on how you name your meridians.   I put the piezoelectric stimulator on the ting point and put a finger of my other hand sequentially on 2-4 points along that meridian shocking each point on the meridian until I get to the exit point or the last point on the meridian.   It will be a shocking experience for you too as you are part of the circuit and get shocked each time.  I progress through all 12 meridians.

The MAT technique is to stimulate the origin and the insertion of the affected muscle. The stimulation in traditional MAT is with pressure from the therapist’s fingers but I use my magnets again and this works well.  One stimulates both the origin and the insertion of the muscles being worked on. 

Often with chronic muscle syndromes I do need to do, additionally, a PENS/IMS hybrid treatment, which I often follow up with cupping.  This adds time to the patient's treatment but I do not have to be in the room all the time for that.

Okay, five minutes is up.

Next, I reevaluate the patient to see if any further treatment is needed including Koryu hand acupuncture, Craig PENS, IMS or trigger point therapy, Dr. Tan’s balancing method, and, rarely for me nowadays, curious meridians or trigramatic equilibration.  I examine the patient again and make a clinical decision based on what the patient’s body is telling me.    In my practice, I use Acupuncture, Category IV laser as a non-ablative laser, Allopathic medicine and even some rudimentary OMT manipulation from time to time.  What is important is the function and comfort of the patient.  I assure the patient that he or she is the most important person in the room.

I’m going to lie to you right now.  My passion for acupuncture is a driving force in my life and my career, third in line after my love for my wife in second place and the most important thing in my life is my Boss, my Jewish Boss that walks on water, Jesus, the Son of God.  …I wish that were true.  I am lying to you.   All that matters to me is MEEEEE!!!!  Just like you are the most important thing to you if you are honest.  All our altruism and patriotism and honor bound sacrifices are designed to make ourselves more comfortable and functional.  Our biggest need is to feel needed and important… if we are honest with ourselves.

Our patients are made that way too.  The most interesting thing for any person is that person himself or herself or things that affect that person.  And that leads to our goal of comfort and functionality for our patients.  Our patients are only interested in their form of ME… no not you, they are interested in themselves without exclusion.  That gets in the way of helping them to become  comfortable and functional.

Can our patients tell when they are functional and comfortable?

We often go through life on memory and remember pain rather than experience it serially.  This is a common problem.    When someone is telling you about their pain, often they are telling you the memory of that pain because we all want to avoid  pain.   This makes pain difficult to reexamine.   What our patients report may or may not be accurate.  It may be memory.  I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to feel pain, but we have to.  Encourage your patients to reexamine pain regularly to see if it is still really there.  It's not too much to ask.

This is the boring stuff in the back:

In 5th grade … yeah, I was a nerd then and I am still a nerd…. I got a hold of Dr. Felix Mann's book, "The Ancient Chinese Art of Acupuncture and how it works Scientifically."  It addressed the concepts of the five elements and the other basic precepts of acupuncture.  I never thought I would be able to practice this art, but I thought it would be neat to have everything I needed for a house call in my saddlebags.  In medical school I was introduced to Dr. Cristina De La Torre who introduced me to the Academy and to Bioenergetics.  Bioenergetics was developed by Maurice  Mussat and later Dr. Joseph Helms took it over. and established the AAMA.   Bioenergetics is much different from the Five Element Acupuncture I learned in my book by Dr. Mann.  I started combining them right away.  Because I was the new youngster on the block and right out of med school, I went to as many courses on the different forms of acupuncture as I could.  Each Author said that his or her acupuncture was the best… I think they all were right.  Eclectically, I combined them all as best I could.

For a very long time I have been trying to cultivate a continuity in the art of acupuncture. There are many groups using varied types of acupuncture, all of which have claims to success.  The Bioenergetics group, the Worsley 5 element group, the IMS group with Dr. Chan and trigger point group with Ann Travell, the Chinese auricular group, the Auricular Medicine group, the Koryu group, the TCM group, the laser acupuncture group and it goes on and on.  I’ve gone to as many different courses as I have been able to and use many of the techniques in conjunction with each other. It seems that the common thread is that we are all seeking the main objective of medical therapy, comfort and functionality for our patients.

On active duty in the Air Force as a flight surgeon in Space Command, supporting the Space Shuttle launches as an Air Doc at Cape Canaveral, I developed Aeromedical Acupuncture  as a way to quickly treat flight crew to keep them from going DNIF [Duties Not to Include Flying].  Any punctures on the torso required, by regulation, 24 hours of DNIF due to the risk of pneumothorax while flying in an unpressurized aircraft.  Most of my patients were “P.J.’s” [Pararescue Jumpers].  These guys, through their vigorous training and, many times their shenanigans, would be injured and unable to fly rescue missions.  Keeping them flying was my job.

Additionally, the treatments take less than 5 minutes and P.J.’s and pilots are impatient.   Aeromedical acupuncture was a great way to keep the rescue divers and pilots flying and diving  and keeping the unit operational.  Mission first!

Accomplish the mission by taking care of the personnel.  That’s real old school.

Now that we have PC, it seems that Mission First is no longer an attitude that is considered favorable.

For a long time, Aeromedical Acupuncture was all I did in Acupuncture.    It suited my current environment so to speak.  That may be why I only stayed 29 years in the Air Force.

AS A METAPHYSICAL ADDENDUM:

Remember the story about the elephant and the blind men?

Patients heal despite doctors as often as because of them.

Thank you God.

If you have ever had a child help you do something, you know it takes twice as long with the child’s help.  Now I know what God thinks about doctors.

One of the major differences between ancient acupuncture and modern western medicine is that acupuncture is designed to assist the body's own healing process by removing blockages and imbalances rather than western medicine using surgery and medicines to manipulate the structures and physiology of the body to make it conform to what we think it should be.  As it is in all of life, each one of us sees only part of the elephant.

Medical Acupuncture is only practiced by M.D.'s or D.O.'s therefore we see more than one part of the elephant, east and west.  To separate the parts of the whole organism and ignore some of those parts like Aristotle and  DeCarte  seems incomplete to me, "I think therefore I am," which separates the spiritual from the physical, or  "the galbladder in room 235" which separates the patient from his or her humanity. The patient is whole and not a Leggo to be put together in a way we think is best.  Conversely, to remove a blockage to healing only to deposit it further down in the path of healing is futile as well. Understanding the parts and ignoring the whole is as bad as understanding the whole but not taking into consideration the interaction of the parts.  That is why understanding the labyrinth of cycles within cycles of the five elements is necessary, complicated as it may be.

The East has continued with the discipline of the mysticism of unity as was practiced with Plato in his discussions of forms and as expounded by Lao Su with the Tao de Ching based on unity and direct experience of what is.  Aristotle fractured existence into categories including Pathos, Logos, and Ethos implying the inability to experience the whole without breaking existence into parts.    The west has followed the road set down by Aristotle and this has become the disjointed discipline of science. The east followed its own path and is presently called mysticism.   With the development of quantum mechanics, the two disciplines are coming back together and agreeing with each other in Quantum Mechanics.   Unfortunately for Aristole, in quantum mechanics, one thing CAN be another.

Let us define science.  Science is nothing more than the art of guessing.  It is the art of putting together observations to make a prediction with the highest probability of accuracy.  That's it!  There are no absolute facts in pure science.   The scientific method is observation, hypotheses, experimentation to test the hypotheses and then theories based on the repeatability of the observations in the experiments to make reliable predictions.

Unfortunately, there have been worshippers of science and they have made a religion of it.

The sun will rise tomorrow is an inductive logical conclusion that predicts with enormous but not absolute accuracy the state of dawn.  There is a low probability that the sun will not rise tomorrow but it is so low that we ignore it.  A cosmic event could happen that could destroy the Earth or the Sun and that would be that. That is why statistical analysis is about the most important thing in science.   When predictions take on the role of facts and science becomes religion, it is not good.  It is not what science was intended to be.

It is said in Zen circles, the mystic relies on direct experiences, many of which cannot be translated into symbols or languages.  Therefore, they cannot be talked about.  Our language is so much a second nature to us that we rarely experience anything directly anymore.  We match up our sensory input to maps in our mind and label them with symbols therefore allowing us to filter the enormous amount of input we receive every minute.  Without this filtering, we would not be able to focus on anything.  We would be distracted by the sensation of our shirt touching us, the pulsing of our blood through the arteries near our tympanic membrane as they made a sound, the flow of a breeze across our face, and the movement seen in the corner of our eye.  We would be paralyzed by overload.  A baby before he or she learns language experiences things directly.  Very quickly, the baby adapts to our environment and starts to filter the most familiar and predictable sensations into recognition groups and eventually to assign them symbols.  When it cries, unpleasant conditions are remedied, like diaper changes or relief of hunger by feeding.  Direct experience communication may be possible but it is beyond my understanding.

 It is said that the Native Americans were unable to see the ships of Columbus because they were so different from anything in their experience.  The medicine man found the ships by seeing the wake created by the ships.   Eventually seeing the ships, he described them and the rest could then see the ships.

It is possible that if an alien were standing right here, we could not see him due to our lack of a symbol for him.

Now science and mysticism have come full circle.  We are applying evidence measures to acupuncture and quantum mechanics looks like a Zen riddle when a hapton transforms itself into a gluon spontaneously.  The physicist can see things we cannot with his or her years of training, observations and use of the scientific method just like the mystic does with his or her use of direct experience.   They can bring theories to fruition that a novice could not.  Often these theories make possible the conveniences we often take for granted, microwaves, television, computers, running water, Chi, the Tao de Ching, acupuncture, etc.  The fruits of the mystic and the scientist both come from the same discipline and all things come from God.  I am glad I work for Him.  He is the only one who understands Quantum Mechanics and Zen riddles.