Acupuncture needles connect to points along acupuncture meridians. The needles are like antennas—they work with the intention of your practitioner to drive a different signal in. The signals that creates inflammation and disease can be turned down, and the signals can that strengthen the function of the organs or the production of blood or fluids. The primary acupuncture channels connect directly to individual organs.

Classical Acupuncture is a comprehensive approach to Chinese medicine which dates back 2,000 years to the Han Dynasty—a sophisticated style with the power to treat conditions in a wide spectrum. Pain, disease and emotional upset are all in the realm of this system of medicine and are treated as interrelated.

Classical Acupuncture differs from more commonly practiced "TCM" or Traditional Chinese Medicine, in that its roots go back to the Han Dynasty, over 2,000 years ago.

Perhaps the biggest difference between CCM an TCM are the channels that we use—a channel can also be called a meridian. TCM utilizes the “Primary Channels”—there are 12 of them—they each connect to an internal organ.

Classical Acupuncture, utilizes both the 12 Primary Channels—as well as The 74 "Secondary Vessels." The Secondary Vessels are effective at treating not only the musculature and the blood levels of the body, but also with the bone level--the deepest level of the body. The bone, or the Jing level would be considered the epigenetic aspect to Chinese medicine. We know western medicine that genes are turned on and off by lifestyle, diet and environment.

By working with the deeper levels, the epi-genetic level is where we can most effectively treat chronic disease such as arthritis, autoimmune conditions and cancer.

Classical Channel Systems

SINEW CHANNELS
LUO CHANNELS
DIVERGENT CHANNELS
EIGHT EXTRAORDINARY
PRIMARY CHANNELS

You can think of a meridian or a channel as a river of energy flowing through your body—connecting the organ to the various parts of the body that it needs to connect with.

I first learned about the meridians when I studied Shiatsu massage. There are Yin meridians and Yang meridians. And there are also different kinds of mediumship that these channels govern—what I mean by that is, for example, the Sinew Channels are involved with the exocrine fluids—sweat. We call this the Wei Qi level in Chinese medicine. The next level is the blood level, and we call that Ying Qi.

The channels that connect directly to their respective organ are called Primary Channels—these are the everyday channels, and the channels that are directly accessed by most acupuncturists and TCM practitioners. The Primary Channels connect with the Wei Qi and the Ying Qi levels.

But there are other channels—and sometimes it is more appropriate to use one channel system over another.

If the issue is primarily emotional in nature, or if there is a lot of stagnation of blood (tremendous pain), then working with the channels that treat the blood most directly will be what is most powerful—that means using the Luo Channels. The Luo channels were classically prescribed to treat emotional upset or physical pain. Combining the Luo channels with the Sinew channels is a phenomenal well-suited way to reduce inflammation in acute injuries.

Deeper still is the exocrine level—the level of congenital disease, the DNA level—and the level of epigenetics—this is the Yuan Qi level. Most acupuncturists are ill-equipped to treat the Yuan Qi level with great precision using acupuncture on its own.

Within this system there are different levels of physiology that we can connect with using different channel systems. For example—if your asthma is related to recent fires, and you had no prior history, using the Primary channels would probably be very effective.

But if you have had asthma since you were a child, and it runs in your family, acupuncture on the Eight Extraordinary channels or the Divergent channels would be more effective, due to the the deep physiological and cellular history and hereditary nature of the problem.

Acupuncture is recognized by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to be effective in the treatment of a wide variety of medical problems. Below are some of the health concerns that acupuncture can effectively treat:

•Addiction

• Anxiety

•Arthritis

•Asthma

•Bronchitis

•Carpal tunnel syndrome

•Chronic fatigue

•Colitis

•Common cold

•Constipation

•Dental pain

•Depression

•Diarrhea

•Digestive trouble

•Dizziness

•Dysentery

•Emotional problems

•Eye problems

•Facial palsy

•Fatigue

•Fertility

•Fibromyalgia

•Gingivitis

•Headache

•Hiccough

•Incontinence

•Indigestion

•Irritable bowel syndrome

•Low back pain

•Menopause

•Menstrual irregularities

•Migraine

•Morning sickness

•Nausea

•Osteoarthritis

•Pain

•PMS

•Pneumonia

•Reproductive problems

•Rhinitis

•Sciatica

•Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)

•Shoulder pain

•Sinusitis

•Sleep disturbances

•Smoking cessation

•Sore throat

•Stress

•Tennis elbow

•Tonsillitis

•Tooth pain

•Trigeminal neuralgia

•Urinary tract infections

•Vomiting

•Wrist pain