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Acupuncture and Shoulder Pain

Acupuncture and Shoulder Pain Brief Clinical Insights Carlo St Juste II LAc CSJ Acupuncture

Transcript

Hi my name is carlo st juste licensed acupuncturist holistic healthcare provider just wanted to speak briefly on the subject of acupuncture and any type of shoulder pain or injury and what are some of the approaches that i take in order to treat patients who come into the clinic exhibiting those symptoms or maybe they’ve been assigned

here through some kind of they’re receiving some kind of treatment either through the va or it’s workers comp or something of that nature and so speaking with the shoulder i think where do we want to start off at do you want to examine what’s going on a lot of times the trapezius as well as the muscles that

make up the shoulder the subscapularis uh the supraspinatus and the teres minor and the tyres minor and the infraspinatus you want to look at the bicep muscles we take a look at all the muscles that are above and below the shoulder and we look at their origins and their insertions if you’re any if you’ve studied anatomy or

if you’re an anatomist or if you understand physiology that is one area that you we have to learn i never knew anything about origins and insertions of muscles and uh you know with in school it’s a little bit more where we study that a little bit more as you’re in practice maybe uh it’s not something that is

as prominent in your memory right but we definitely understand the importance of knowing where muscles start and where they end and how they pull also through this area there’s a lot of meridians that cross transverse not transverse or a run superior and lateral uh along the arms a large intestine meridian just name a few testimonials sanjay meridian

pericardium uh inside and outside the shoulder right heart meridian right um so from a chinese from a chinese from a traditional chinese medicine perspective there are energy points there are there’s a path towards the shoulder and i’ve done points on the leg to help with conditions such as what we call adhesive capsulitis that is a frozen shoulder

where the patient cannot move their arm and there’s no range of motion maybe even the range of motion is limited here but for whatever reason there’s they cannot move their their their arm their shoulder we call that a we do a range of motion which is we check the av duction and a deduction one starts with such as uh bunny with and the other one d as in dog right so this allows us to check the range of motion of the shoulder see if you’re able to lift the arm and whatnot you also check the flexion and the extension of the shoulder in order to get a better idea of the range of

motion maybe i can do that with this arm as you can see too so and i think one thing is i i don’t want to take for granted right and none of us should take for granted our abilities to raise the arm like that and that’s sort of that’s the reason why some many people seek acupuncture treatment

is because they don’t have that ability or it’s painful for them or whatever the case may be so more than happy to guide them in the right direction and be a part of the healing process and as i had mentioned before looking at the muscles seeing if there’s any hypertonicity seeing if there’s any pinching of certain errors

especially in uh regions uh around the acromion and the clavicle and and all that fun and all those fun muscles around in that in the area um interesting right muscles i say so looking at if someone has any issues if they have if it’s just pain if there’s numbness and tingling if there’s any weakness how can you

tell if it’s a mush a muscle issue if it’s an issue with the gh capsule right which where the shoulder connects to it’s actually where the humerus connects to the scapula and usually imaging will help with that right and it you can’t just see right through there certain tests you can perform apprehension tests and aptlys and and

certain orthopedic examinations that can help at least help us in determining what’s going on maybe try to pinpoint the problem and put that all together it’s very um very useful so looking at uh what we can do in the clinic and what imaging can be used for once again as an acupuncturist many people might think that we’re

only limited to uh traditional tools or just our our theory and physiology and treatment and the physiology of our theory which is true we we utilize that but we we also love utilizing uh new age uh more contemporary uh techniques in technology imaging right mris and x-rays and lab results and see what’s going on chemically and then

we can put it all together combine what you have going on and look at it from a traditional chinese medicine perspective or whatever perspective uh maybe the practitioner has been trained in and looking at your biomedical condition and and results and tests and we can try to see if there’s something we can do and formulate a treatment

so with that i will try to get more into the physiology and and the inner workings of the acupuncture once again maybe when treating the shoulder maybe we we go directly into the area it’s not uncommon for acupuncturists to put needles directly into the shoulder or away from the shoulder more either contralateral body parts which are body

parts on the other side so for instance if i have pain on my left shoulder i would do put the needles on the right arm or anywhere on the right leg and or we can do ipsilateral which is the same side points so if i have pain on this shoulder and i do points on my left leg

or do points on the patient up on their left arm and it all determines on what is going on so that’s why on these videos sometimes sorry i don’t want to say sometimes all the time i mentioned that you know you have to see a practitioner sometimes i am vague and that’s for a reason because i’m trying

to give you a general idea when you go into the clinic you’ll be able to speak to a practitioner and dive more deep into the understanding and the inner workings and explain exactly what is for what’s going to work best in your situation which i feel that you know we always say we have this system of individualized

medicine and you know i think being an acupuncturist and treating patients and working with patients one-on-one you really do see that there’s a standard of care there’s a system of care that is needed into in order to address individuals individualized concerns see i i see so i wish i could make this recording a little bit louder i

will work on that next time i’ll get a microphone but sometimes you have the energy and you want to go do things so i hope this gives you a better understanding in terms of how a practitioner may approach treating some type of shoulder injury or pain and it also gives you some some a better background in terms

of the conditions that maybe an acupuncturist can treat and if you have any more questions please feel free to leave a comment or you can always send me an email mailbox at csj acupuncture dot com or you can visit my website or you can contact the clinic more than happy to speak to patients and individuals and and

offer my con my consult my two cents so many blessings during this time please stay safe as you can see i have my mask there’s no one in the office here so it’s okay right for now right i’m gonna be doing a cleaning in this and i can find myself to a space i’m gonna be cleaning this

room be spraying everything down trust me i’m taking every precaution so uh but i wanted to speak so you can see me and hear my voice and all that other fun stuff so it’s a little bit clearer sometimes i do record videos with the mask so wish you the best and blessings take care

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