WEBVTT - Does acupuncture work? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know? 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:16.360 From house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.800 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant's 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:22.240 two thousand and eleven and this is Stuff you Should 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.760 Know two thousand eleven, our first one. Man. We've been 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.160 doing this for years, like four seven, eight years something 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.120 like that. I think it's our twelfth year. Yeah. Overall, 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.840 we've been doing it since ninety there, since everybody's worried 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:41.080 about black helicopters. Yeah, and that was our our second podcast, 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.720 I think was on the Y two K bug, wasn't it? 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.120 It was? Didn't that pan out to be almost nothing? 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.519 You know? The iPhone has a bug like a Y 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.480 two K bug that's left over if Yeah, apparently that's 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.560 a a Y two K grandkid. Well, I think if 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:00.200 you're depending on your iPhone to wake you up, and 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.959 I don't know, I don't use anything, but we'll look 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:10.120 at you. So two thousand eleven Man Future Man Omega 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.120 Man Chuck. Yes, have you ever heard of a little 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:20.560 condition called amblyopia? No, Amblyopia is also unfortunately referred to 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.520 as lazy eye. Yes, yes, and um. I used to 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:29.760 have a friend in college named Grant, and Grant Um 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.240 did not have amblyopia unless he had been drinking. And like, 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.840 you could tell how much Grant had drunk depending on 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.399 how pronounced this amblyopia was. And I didn't know. I 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.040 knew Grant for a while before I finally noticed this, 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:47.000 and it was surprising when I finally did, and he's like, yeah, 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.000 it happened sometimes. Did you ever take English from that 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.760 guy at Georgia that had the Michael Jordan's It wasn't. 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:55.680 There was an English teacher named Michael Jordan and he 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:57.800 had a lazy eye, and like on the first day 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.240 of class he said, this is the eye that's looking 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.400 at you, just to clear it up, because his was like, 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:05.680 as my friend Guy called it, a disco eye. It 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.799 was way out of whack. Yah. See, I have a 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.040 soft spot for people with strab SMUs, which is any 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.880 kind of um, you know, walleye, lazy eye, cross eyed, disco. 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.919 I've never heard that one before, but the same thing, right. 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.200 I actually wrote a pretty cool blog post on it once. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.240 You should check it out. Strab SMUs Blogs at house. 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.320 Stuff works, it should bring it up, right, but chuck. Um. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:33.200 I recently ran across an article that showed a study 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.040 of kids age seven to twelve years with amblyopia, right, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:44.120 were cured of their lazy eye through acupuncture. Yeah, and 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:48.200 this is a This is an accredited article in the 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.160 Archives of Optimology, which is a publication of the American 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.720 Medical Association. And basically they had a control group, which 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.040 was kids who had their eye patched their I guess 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.560 dominant or good eye, non lazy eye patched for two 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.120 hours a day, which I guess kind of forces the 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.560 lazy eye to correct itself. That's the pretty standard treatment. 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.560 Or the other group, Um, we're given acupuncture five times 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.960 a week. What a cruel study. We're gonna fix you kids, 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.160 but we're hoping you don't show any improvement. You you 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.160 would think so, but get this. The kids who had 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.680 their eye patched, Um, sixteen point seven percent had their 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:32.359 ambiliopia resolved. Forty one point five percent had their ambiliopia 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.520 resolved in the acupuncture alone group. What was it again, 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:41.920 sixteen percent? That is huge, huge, um. But you'll know 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.960 my my incredulousness. Yeah. Um, when I was saying, no, 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.920 this was published in a respectable journal. Right. That's because 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.800 this podcast was recorded in the West. Eastern medicine is 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.080 still poo pooed in many circles around here, it is, 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.040 but with acupuncture specifically, this is one of those um 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.080 those things that has made the crossover largely into the West, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.320 and it kind of has you know, Western thought puzzle 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.520 a little bit, like what's going on with this um 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:17.680 And there's what let's talk about both approaches to acupuncture, 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.080 like explaining what's going on because one of the um 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:27.479 the predominant thoughts about uh acupunctures that it works somehow. Right, So, 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.440 if you're Chinese, Chuck, how does acupuncture work? If you're Chinese, Josh, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.000 you believe that your body has the Yen and the end, 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.880 a couple of opposing forces, and that your body has 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.320 a an energy uh running through it called Chi even 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.440 though it's spelled q i, and that when your body 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.960 is in balance, and we've talked about balance and homeostasis 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.480 and all that and in the East, then you have 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.280 good chi energy is flowing. When things get blocked up, 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:56.760 that means your che is blocked. That means the end 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.520 and the Yang fall out of balance. And that means 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.839 you get to right and your energy flows along pathways 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.120 in the body called meridians. Right, Yeah, you've got to 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.320 think a dozen of them from point to point. We'll 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.320 get to the acupoints later. But uh so they well, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.640 let's get to him now. The acupoints are there's two 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:17.320 thousand of them later, Okay, I'm just kidding. Along these 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.960 fifteen meridians, there's I think twelve meridians. I'm sorry, there's 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.720 a total of two thousand little points. And these are acupoints. 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.159 And someone correspond to like that part of your body, 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.560 and others correspond to others. And like you said, we'll 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:32.599 get into a little a little more later on. But 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.320 the point being, energy flows along these meridians. It can 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.679 get blocked at these points. If you manipulate these points, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.839 the chief flows freely and yin and yang are balanced. 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.359 And you may have a bad tattoo as a stimulate 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.440 stimulate these points, and there's lots of ways to do that. 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.919 Well wait, wait, what happens if you are in the West. 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.360 How does acupuncture work well in the West, They would 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.680 say that it's uh stimulates the central nervous system releases hormones, 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:04.800 arrow transmitters boost the immune system, dull's pain, stuff like that. 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.560 So you know, the same thing, the same result, two 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.120 ways of explaining it, isn't it. Yeah, Yeah, that's what 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:15.000 I think. So, Chuck Um, you mentioned that this is Chinese, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.000 didn't you ancient Chinese? Right? Where did it come from? 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.599 How long has it been around? Well more than years 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.560 in China. And it's rooted in Taoism, which is all 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.559 about harmony between the humans and nature and the earth 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.600 and stuff like that. The yin and yang again, can't 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.480 have good without bad, light without dark, all that, all 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:36.039 that good stuff. And if you have too much of 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.440 one or the other, you either can't see or you 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.400 can't see. Yeah, too bright or too dark, either way 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.320 you can't see. Right, It's true. I think that they said. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.560 The first place it appeared in text was in uh 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:53.520 the Nijing, which is the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.160 Medicine by Hwangdi. I like, how to sink the Chinese 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.479 are in their language? Yeah, me too. Two words for 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:04.200 Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal medic to one syllable words, 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.520 and that's at a three hundred BC, And he described 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.560 Hwang describes diseases, and it was, from what I can tell, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:13.920 one of the first medical books to actually be written. 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.600 And he described various acupuncture points in this book, so 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.480 boom there it is. Then about five hundred years later, 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:28.240 um acupuncture is completely laid out in this twelve volume 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:34.400 text called the um zen U g Xing, The Comprehensive 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.440 Manual of Acupuncture and Maxibustion. Yeah. I didn't know about maxibustion. 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.120 We're getting into that. That's kind of cool. But this 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.200 Comprehensive manuals like I said, it's twelve volumes and it 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.640 basically says like this point here will do all of this. 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.720 You've got this problem right right here, right, and but 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.880 there's only three d sixty five ACU points early on, 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:55.720 one for each day of the year. Yeah, and then 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.560 eventually like this just stupid, there's two thousand. Let's just 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.440 come out and say there's two thousand. Right. I wonder 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:02.960 if the twelve Meridians had something to do with the 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:08.320 twelve months, maybe so, or the twelve days of Christmas, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.320 or the twelve signs of the zodiac perhaps early on. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:14.400 Instead of needle while they were needles, but they were 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.760 made from stone and bone, which probably wasn't want of fun, 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.240 so they decided we should probably use metal like bronze 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.320 and gold and silver, and that worked for a little 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:27.240 while these days of stainless steel, thankfully. And now that 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.000 you mentioned that, it occurred to me that we never 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.800 defined acupuncture. Oh, everyone knows what it is, right. I 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.120 thought everyone knew a roller Derby was all right. Acupuncture 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.800 is a a Eastern medicine where they're small needles are 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.040 stuck into various points of the body and manipulated in 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.040 certain ways or not. And because you're living today, those 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.640 are a little tiny stainless steel, hair hair thin needles, 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.319 not like knitting needles or anything, not like a bone. No, 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.800 but it was at a time I already said that. Yeah. 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.960 Uh so in the nineteenth century, early nineteenth century, uh, 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.559 people started going to China and were introduced to acupuncture, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:09.760 brought it back to the West in Europe to a 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.560 certain degree in the course of doctors in Europe, probably 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.480 before the doctors in the United States were like, hey, 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.600 this is kind of neat, let me experiment around, especially 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:22.760 in France with George Soule de Moron. Yeah, he was 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.440 like the champion of acupuncture in the West. He went 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.439 to China. He's a scholar. Um, he went to China 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.360 at the turn of the twentieth century, which means the 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.640 eight hundreds of the nineteen hundreds. And he saw firsthand 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.319 that acupuncture worked, and um, he brought it back in 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.120 championed it in France. In France actually came up with 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:48.640 their own type of acupuncture. I bet us because of him, Actually, 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:50.880 I would think so, because he was probably the first 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.959 dude to get it going. Are we gonna we're gonna 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:55.400 talk about that now. You want to skip on to 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.120 that later, We'll get to it in a second. Uh. 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.360 Then it eventually, like all things made tway to the 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.800 United States. Um. And the article that said President Nixon's 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.079 visit to China was a big deal as far as 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.120 introducing a lot of Chinese ways to the States, it's 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:14.360 like China fever. Yeah, in the first blast of China fever. Right. 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.280 And then in the U s. There's a guy named 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.079 James Reston who um writes for the New York Times 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.439 where he did and he had a appendix to me, Well, 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.440 he had appendix surgery, which I'd take to be appendix 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.640 to me right. Um, and uh, he he got acupuncture 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.880 to treat um his pain and it worked, and he 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.160 wrote about it, and this is the first mention. Now 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.160 here we are today, right here we are. Um, it 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.120 is viewed as a legitimate medicine. Right. Yeah, I've got 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.240 a stat that says, uh, twenty million Americans have undergone acupuncture, 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.120 which is a lot higher than the article, but it 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.640 may just be more recent, right because that was the 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.640 two thousand two National Health Survey. Yeah, and the FDA 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.360 said that Americans spent a half a billion dollars in 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.480 the nineties alone on acupuncture. That was the nineties. You know. 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:03.640 Now people are all cookie for this kind of stuff, 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.280 so it's probably even more I would think so, not 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.800 the cynical nineties. It was also legitimized six um when 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.720 the f d A decided that UM acupuncture needles should 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.800 be considered uh medical instruments. Yeah that was a good thing. Yeah. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.280 It makes the whole process a lot safer now because 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.920 you have to use sterile needles, right, um or or 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.760 they have to be sterilized somehow, Like you're not gonna 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.319 get an infection, and if you are, you're really going 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.760 to the wrong acupuncture, you know, I would say so, Um, 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.600 and uh, like you said, how many how many billions 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:40.840 of dollars did we spend on a chuck half a billion, 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.800 five million in the nineties. I know that's sort of 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.040 an old stat, but you know, the f d A, 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:49.280 I don't even know what that means. I don't either. Yeah, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.800 that's the stat they give me, so chuck. We've been 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:56.120 focusing just on the Chinese version, although we did foreshadow 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.360 that there's a French version to Yeah, TCM traditional Chinese medicine. Yes, 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.319 let's talk about the different kinds of acupuncture. Well, that's 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.319 the Chinese kind, Okay, it comes out of t c M. 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.840 And uh, there's the Japanese counterparts, a little more subtle. 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.520 Needles are generally a little shorter, a little thinner, Uh, 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.400 don't pierce the skin as much. And there are two 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.720 kinds root in local obviously root if you treat the 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.079 whole body for something. And then local. Yeah, local is 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.040 when they you know, get like I'll stick in the 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.760 ear to fix your foot. Um, you may live in 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.400 Japan for a little while. And she told me that 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.520 there were two couples in her um, little province, little town, 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:43.600 um that performed acupuncture and both couples were blind. Really 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.440 can that crazy? I would trust that. Yeah, it seems 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.080 like it, because you know, you know the body feel around? 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.800 Sure for the points. What's the touchy Like if I 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.000 need a doctor to have eyes to know where my 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.400 kneecap is, then I don't want to be at that doctor. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:01.520 You should be able to feel your way around to 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:07.640 the kneecap. Sure, sure, alright, So the five element in 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.680 Debt crack area for some reason. Five element acupuncture is 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.280 Chinese as well, and that treats the body and mine 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:18.520 and that's based on the idea that the earth and 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.680 body and everything in nature is governed by the five elements. 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.920 Water would fire, earthen metal. So that's kind of neat, yes, 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:31.280 And apparently you can um manipulate the balance of these 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:36.840 elements through acupuncture within yourself. And then here finally, everyone 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.560 who's been hanging on for this one. This is the 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:44.000 French one auricular, right, Oh, yeah, that is the French one. Yeah. 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.439 The French um apparently decided that the ear is all 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.960 you need to do. Yeah, there's um two hundred ACU 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.120 points located on the ear that correspond to different parts 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.600 of the body and by manipulating these ACU points. You 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.320 can do the same thing that um can be done 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:09.240 with traditional Chinese acupuncture, right um. And apparently that's kosher 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.120 in China because it's viewed the ear is viewed as 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.200 a sensitive spot for manipulating chi the flow of che, 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.320 isn't it well? Yeah, and with all the accup points 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.720 on the ear, and wonders how piercing affects that. You know, 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:27.080 if there's one thing if I could spend like to 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:28.960 do something to my body, it would be to cover 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.520 up these old ear piercing holes. Yeah, I got one too, 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.560 but mine's looks so stupid. And I think about the 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:40.960 dudes with the gauges. It's cool now, kids, but and 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:42.200 of course you don't want to be the old guy 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.560 saying just wait till you're older. But it's one thing 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:46.240 to have a tattoo you're not proud of. Another thing 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.040 to have like a big hole in your ear. Yeah, 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.200 or both? Yeah, I think it's generally both, isn't it. Yeah? 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.240 Those kids? Uh? Korean hand acupuncture is is is the 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.080 last one listed here, and that's essentially the same thing, 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.840 is the auricular accept It all goes through the hands, right, 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:09.760 and then Chuck, You mentioned moxibustion, right, So maxibustion is 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.200 um acupuncture with these are we just mentioned the different 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.760 types of acupuncture. There's also different things you can do 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:19.800 while you have needles sticking out of your body. Yeah, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.520 these are related, sure things that you can do, and 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.560 moxibustion is one of those things. So um, this is 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:30.880 the the stimulation of acupoints using heat. Right, And Moxa 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.240 is an herb that comes from the mugwarp plant and 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.240 traditionally in Chinese medicine, UM, you take about a rice 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.560 grain size piece of moxa, put it on an acupoint 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.680 and set that thing on fire and then let it 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.240 burn and create pain and leave a scar. Now, this 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.240 can be done in conjunction with the needle treatment as well. 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.040 Is that right now? I think this is in lieu 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:58.720 of it unless you're doing indirect that's direct moxibustion. Unsurprisingly, 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.040 then there's indirect ox in busting, which is UM basically 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.280 wrapping mox in paper, lighting the paper which you know 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.920 makes the mocks of smolder, and then holding it near 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:16.120 an acupoint or wrapping moxa around an occupied lighting that thing. Yes, 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.160 you can also use electro acupuncture or saw no acupuncture 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:25.320 to either move an electrical current through the needles or 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.840 in the case of saw no, it's there are no needles, 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.320 but you use sound to affect your acupoints. When I went, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:36.000 they put a heat lamp over the needles to heat 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:42.440 up the needles. While acupuncture once just kind of it 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.200 is not the point when you're supposed to go like 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:46.880 a chiropractor and get it, you know, until you're fixed. 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.240 But yeah, I think I mentioned it once before. I 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:50.800 found a cheap place in l a that it was 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.120 like a school you can get for like tin bucks, 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.960 you can get acupuncture. It was awesome. What was it? 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.920 It was real? Why didn't you go back? Um? I 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:00.960 wanted to, and then you know, like some big job 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.000 came up and I got distracted. It was one of 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.120 those deals. It wasn't there. I didn't believe in there. 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.159 She set up like huh and ran out with all 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.159 these needles speaking out of your back, So chuck. You 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.760 then know what to expect right if you go get acupuncture, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.800 at least from this one lady. Okay did it follow 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.320 kind of with the article details the dim lights and 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.280 uh soothing heat lamp. She left me alone, close the 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:30.199 door and the on the CD player on low. It 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.520 was very relaxing. I think there was music actually, so 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.680 you're well, yeah, sure, deep purple. I mean that was 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.320 my experience. I've never been locally here. Well, we were 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.800 talking about UM the ACU points right and how they 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.520 correspond to different parts of the body. UM, and they're 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.880 actually mapped right, it's not just like this sounds like this, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.520 So let's try your cornea. It's not like that. It's 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.440 numbered out and charted. It's a standardized absolutely. So the 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.439 twelve maridi as we talked about, are they relate to 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.000 different parts of the body. Right, So you've got like 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.520 the bladder, you have the kidney, the large intestin, the spleen, 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:14.439 the gall bladder, um, the liver, the parcardium, which is 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.520 what is that it's over your heart, right, I think 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.119 that's the covering of your heart. It scott cardio in there. 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.840 It's got to be stomach heart Okay, man, now I'm 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.560 second guessing myself. In the parcardium long small intestine and 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:32.719 the triple heater, which that's that's the closer. Yeah, So 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.160 you've got you've got these different these are the twelve meridians, 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.600 and then uh, there's you know, different numbers corresponded to 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.200 the different accu points along that meridian. So, for example, 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.720 you have g B one is a certain accupoint on 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.919 the gall bladder merdian. Okay, yeah, but that's how it's 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.080 spelled out. But that doesn't necessarily mean if I want 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:52.639 to fix the gall bladder I'm gonna stick you in 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.639 the gallbladder meridian. Precisely, you could stick stick in the shoulder. 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:03.080 Who knows an acupuncturist, but now exactly so. Um, when 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:05.320 you go to an acupuncturist when you have a malady, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:07.800 you're going to tell him or her what's going on here. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.199 She's gonna take a history, um, get an idea of 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.199 what your problem is, like a regular doctor doctor, right, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.639 and then consult this map and say, okay, well, this 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.280 guy's having lower back pain. So I'm gonna go stick 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:28.720 some needles around um the ub some alcohol. That's a 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:30.960 big part of it. Yeah, if you're not swabbed with alcohol, 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:32.439 get out of there, and you take the needle out 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:33.840 of the package so you know it's nice and new, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.840 then I'm gonna stick anywhere from two, three, five, to 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.680 fifty needles in some area that will correspond to that meridian, 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.399 right and that pain. These needles are going to be 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.119 stuck in anywhere from a quarter of an inch to 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:54.040 three inches, which brings up a potential danger. With acupuncture, 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.080 you have organs that are closer to your skin than 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.480 three inches, so you couldn't conceivably have a kidney punctured 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:04.879 a lung punctured. This is why you want to go 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:10.400 to a certified acupunctuous. Yeah, and I want to say 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.280 it's very rare. So don't let something like that scare you, 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.760 because we could tell you American surgical stories that are 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.399 equally as horrifying, like they remove my kidney and they 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.400 weren't supposed to that kind of thing. So don't think, 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.400 oh my gosh, I'm gonna get stabbed through the lung 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.359 with a needle. You know. That's called a big, big mistake, 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.000 and it happens in all medicine. Everybody stabs people through 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.200 the long with the needle. Uh, it's it's it's not. 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:37.879 You might feel a little bit of pain with the 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.080 initial prick of the needle, but after that, it's not 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:43.360 like you feel the needle inside your body. You said 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:45.399 it was relaxing, right, it's very relaxing. I didn't en 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.200 feel the needles going in, to be honest, just a 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.880 little tap and they're really tiny, the ones that used 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.800 on me very very thin. Uh. They'll leave it in 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.120 there five to twenty minutes for me, it was about 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.200 twenty minutes, I think. And they can stimulate them while 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.879 they're in your skin, like it said, with the various 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.000 ways like heat, electricity, or they might even twirl them 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:06.960 with their fingers if they're feeling saucy, if they want 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.320 to do it by hand. Um. You said that you're 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:11.439 supposed to go more than once. I think the the 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.600 average is something like, um, twelve weeks, once a week 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.160 for twelve weeks. It all depends on your issue, which 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.840 if you're on Medicare, you're probably not gonna do because 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.520 it costs anywhere from sixty bucks to twenty bucks probably 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:29.040 more than that um for an acupuncture session, right. Um, 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:30.879 And if you have to go to twelve times, you 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.960 want insurance that's going to cover. Unfortunately, Medicare doesn't. Even 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:39.240 though the federal government recognizes acupuncture needles as medical instruments. Right. 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:44.000 Sounds like a bit of a double standard. Our insurance 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.320 covers it actually, which is good, and a lot of 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.520 major insurance carriers cover it. I'm gonna give it a try, 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:51.879 all right. I've been meaning to. I've got this. Um. 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:57.240 I have a muscle in my neck right here that 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.480 has turned into you know those um metal ables that 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:05.200 are braided. I have one of those in my neck. Man, 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:07.360 I need to see if they can do something about that. 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:09.280 You need to walk around on that thing she does. 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:13.439 But I mean it's kind of like, oh, traffic or 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.000 oh this dozen eggs has one broken in it something. 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.040 You know, you need to relax. My friends. Oh you 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:22.680 know how that they have that tiger Heart place and 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:28.000 sort of emin park Old fourth Ward. It's on Edgewood. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.880 You should go there. It's an acupunctu tiger heart acupuncture. 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.439 You're getting kickbacks from no, of course not. It's all 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.639 my way to work though. So, UM, is it safe, Josh? 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.040 I know you mentioned the one, the one issue with 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:42.680 the stabbing through the organs, But other than that, well, 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:44.840 like you said, for the most part, it is very safe, 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:49.080 especially now that it's more regulated. Um. I think forty 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:54.240 states have some sort of standard and require that acupunctures 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:57.720 be certified for the most part um and this was 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.520 news to me. There are any of Western physicians who, 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.360 um who practice acupuncture. Yeah, you can be a med 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:09.120