⛓️ The Chain and Lock Technique

This week I thought it would be fun to talk about an interesting point selection technique called the chain and lock method.

This is a technique that's discussed in the beginning of A Manual of Acupuncture by Peter Deadman, but I've found that not many people are familiar with it.

The idea behind the chain and lock method is that you can activate a channel on the limb by needling a point at each of the major joints -- shoulder, elbow, wrist/hand; or hip, knee, ankle.

By needling at each of these locations on a channel, you draw qi and blood into the limb, treating disorders such as atrophy, hemiplegia, or sciatica.

This is usually done on yang channels, and most commonly on the Yangming channel (since the Yangming is abundant in qi and blood).

So for each channel, the points would be:

• LI-15, LI-11, LI-4
• ST-31, ST-36, ST-41
• SI-10, SI-8, SI-3
• UB-36, UB-40, UB-60

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For example, suppose a patient has weakness and atrophy in the arm after a stroke (poor grip strength is very common in post-stroke conditions). In this case, you could needle LI-15 (at the shoulder), LI-11 (at the elbow), and LI-4 (on the hand).

At each joint, you're unlocking the pathway and drawing qi and blood into the affected limb.

You could to the same thing for hemiplegia or atrophy of the lower limb with ST-31 (hip), ST-36 (knee), and ST-41 (ankle).

Again, the Yangming channels have "more qi and more blood," so they are commonly used to draw qi and blood into the limbs. However, this technique can be used on other channels as well.

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For example, if the patient has sciatic pain running down the back of the leg (along the Urinary Bladder channel), you could needle UB-36 (hip), UB-40 (knee), and UB-60 (ankle) to open up the channel and treat painful obstruction (by syndrome).

For pain in the posterior shoulder, one could needle SI-10 (shoulder), SI-8 (elbow), and SI-3 (hand).

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So I hope that was helpful. I often use this technique with post-stroke patients, using points along either the LI or ST channel. And even though Deadman doesn't mention it, sometimes I'll use a similar method along the GB channel.

Have you ever used this technique? What did you use it for and how did it work?