How does your acupuncture practitioner decide which acupuncture points to treat?
Dr. Panchal decides which points to treat by observing and questioning the patient in order to make a diagnosis according to the tradition which he or she utilizes. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are four diagnostic methods: inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiring, and palpation.
• Inspection focuses on the face and particularly on the tongue, including analysis of the tongue size, shape, tension, color and coating, and the absence or presence of teeth marks around the edge.
• Auscultation and olfaction refer, respectively, to listening for particular sounds (such as wheezing) and attending to body odor.
• Inquiring focuses on the “seven inquiries”, which are: chills and fever; perspiration; appetite, thirst and taste; defecation and urination; pain; sleep; and menses and leukorrhea.
• Palpation includes feeling the body for tender “ashi” points, and palpation of the left and right radial pulses at two levels of pressure (superficial and deep) and three positions Cun, Guan, Chi (immediately proximal to the wrist crease, and one and two fingers’ breadth proximally, usually palpated with the index, middle and ring fingers).
Wishing you the best of health,
Jignesh Panchal