🧶 How to Handle Complex Patterns

So how do you deal with a complex patient where it seems like everything is wrong?

It's like they have Spleen qi deficiency plus Liver blood deficiency plus Liver qi stagnation with underlying Kidney yang deficiency with heat harassing the Heart. Where do you even begin?

Well here's a story my teacher would tell:

Suppose you have a ball of string. It's very tangled and knotted. 🧶

(I swear the first time he told me this story it was a ball of string. But later he was like, "Nooou, it is not a ball of string. It is a net -- like for fishing.)

So suppose you have a net, like for fishing. It's very tangled, so many knots. If you want to straighten it out, where do you even begin?

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It is like this:

Look for the biggest knot first, and focus on just untangling that one knot. Because after you straighten out that largest knot, many of the smaller threads will become untangled automatically as a consequence.

So this is how I approach acupuncture treatments (and herbs too): Instead of chasing down every little thread or trying to untangle three large knots at the same time, just focus on the biggest one.

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Focus Your Treatment

Sometimes I would see students with a diagnosis that was like five lines long. And because they wanted to address every single problem, they ended up using like 40 needles.

But the problem is, that waters down the treatment. You're sending the qi in so many different directions, the body doesn't know what to do with it.

Remember that everything in the body is connected. If you focus on one thing and really make a change, that will have cascading effects down the system.

So if you just focus on transforming dampness, then you will un-encumber the Spleen and now the Liver won't be able to overact so easily. So Liver will be calmed automatically as a consequence.

Or if you just focus on tonifying Kidney yang, that will also warm the Spleen and improve digestion, and reestablish communication with the heart, and help transform the fluids.

And if untangling that one knot doesn't magically fix all their problems... that's ok! You've simplified the problem. Now you have a clearer picture going forward, and it can be easier to identify the root.