A64 year-old Polish man has been coming to my clinic for over a year due to various pains in his back, shoulder and, more recently, his knees. Each time he described the pain as feeling sharp and fixed, "like being jabbed."
In his most recent visit, he complained of chronic on-off knee pain in both legs.
His right knee presented with hard swelling and significant pain upon palpation or walking down stairs. His work is very physical and involves a lot of climbing stairs or ladders while carrying equipment over 5 kg. His tongue was darkish-purple with a white coat and his pulse was thick and choppy. These symptoms indicate a syndrome known in traditional Chinese medicine as "blood stasis." Simply put, this means that blood flow has become compromised and stagnant, which can cause sharp, fixed pains.
Similar to his previously effective treatments for back and shoulder pain, we again used wet cupping for his knee pains.
Cupping is a form of treatment thousands of years old that was used not only in ancient China, but also ancient Greece and Egypt.
"Wet" cupping is one method of cupping that is a type of controlled bloodletting by making multiple shallow pinpricks into the skin and then creating a vacuum of reduced oxygen with a cup over the skin.
This acts on tissue up to four inches within the body, drawing toxins and dead blood from deep within the body to the surface in order to relieve pain and vigorously stimulate the blood and lymphatic circulation.
I wet cupped two locations above the knee that correspond with two acupuncture points, SP10 and ST34, on the spleen and stomach meridians, and are used to move blood and relieve acute leg pain, respectively.
His blood flowed so slowly, however, that only seven ml would release.
It was very dark and frothy, like the froth you see when you pour root beer pop. The dark blood represents old blood - blood that is filled with dead red blood cells or has a lot of fibrin in it.
Fibrin is a protein made by the body during the process of clot formations. So if there is excess in the blood, this leads to thrombosis, or clotted vessels and tissues.
After advising him to drink at least two litres of healthy, warm fluids (such as warm lemon-water) a day to improve his blood flow, he returned a week later very happy to report that his pain was reduced by 50 per cent He was able to stand up without pain and walk down stairs with tolerable discomfort.
In the next two followup treatments, the gentleman came prepared by clearing his leg hair.
Blood flowed much more easily, but it was still dark and frothy.
Approximately 10 mL was cupped from each location, totalling 30 ml of clotted jelly-like blood extracted from both knees.
By the time he walked out of my office following his third knee treatment, he reported total ease in walking up and down stairs.
He described feeling like he had "new knees" and plans to return in six to eight months to continue health maintenance care.
Mee Lain Ling is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine with her clinic located in the Richmond Health Sciences Centre. Visit www.drmeelainling. com for more health articles and contact information.
