Health Education Articles
Chinese Medicine and Injuries
By Kimberly Guorong Du
Injury means harm to any part of the body. Injury may arise from a wide variety of causes. Here we only talk about the injuries caused by physical influence and that causes damage to one or more of the tissues that surround bones and joints, e.g., to a ligament, tendon, or muscle. The so-called soft-tissue injuries include ligament sprain, tendonitis (inflammation of a tendon), and muscle tears.
Many injuries are given a sports prefix to their names, but can also be caused by something unrelated to sports. For example, tennis elbow is a type of overuse injury that may occur from playing tennis or from an activity like sawing wood.
Chinese medical treatment is very good for Muscle pull, Neck pain, Shoulder injury, Lower back Strain, Tennis elbow, Runner's knee, Shin splints, Ankle sprain, Achille tendonitis, Arch pain etc.
The treatment includes acupuncture, cupping, herbal application formulas, TuiNa (Chinese therapeutic massage) and internal herbal medicine. Which method or formulas are going to be used will depend on the severity of the injury and how long it occurred.
Treatment principles and usual methods:
- For the new injuries within 1 to 2 days, the therapeutic principle is stanch bleeding, disperse swelling, relieve pain and heat clearing.
- For the injury after 2 days, the therapeutic principle is to soothe the channels and quicken the network vessels to transform stasis and move the blood to disperse swelling, relieve pain and repair soft-tissue.
- Recurrence of discomfort or chronic pain from an old injury. The treatment principle is warm the channels and free the network vessels, dispel wind, eliminate dampness and dissipate cold, strengthen sinew and bone.
From Chinese medical point of view, right after injury or there is redness, swelling, hot and pain using ice pack would be appropriate. Otherwise, don't use it. Especially a pain without heat sign shouldn't use ice pack. Improper using ice pack may cause chronic pain.