Acupuncture for Knee Pain

Kathe Ana: I am Kathe Ana. I am licensed acupuncturist and the lead acupuncturist at Heavenly Bodies Clinic. In this segment, we are going to be talking about using Traditional Chinese medicine and the meridians on the body, the bodys energy and acupuncture points for alleviation of knee pain. Now, I am going to demonstrate with an acupuncture needle but this is not something you would do at home. I am using the needle just to show you where the acupuncture points are for knee pain and acupuncture needles are single use, sterile, solid needle, hair thin and they are round at the tip so they dont drop blood or they dont break any structures in the body. So with knee pain here, we have a patient here who has a knee pain that is short pain running up this center of the knee cap. You can have pain thats on the side of the knee, on the inside of the knee, lower on the leg or even upper on the leg into muscle bands. Any of those pains are going to be alleviated by the treatment that I going to be showing you. So acupuncture points are easily located, any where you find a depth in a knee just press on those two points on either side of your knee and you will find it to be an acupuncture point. You can actually feel a little bit more sensation there than you would off that point. So two points here and again above the knee, two points here, then lateral and medial to the knee you will just, you can feel around the when your finger falls into a depression around the bone thats where you will find an acupuncture point. So a medial point would be basically close to the knee cap on this side where you knee indent. So I am going to show you just an acupuncture needle insertion on two points one here and one here. This is just for your information you cant do this at home. Acupuncture needles are considered medical equipment and they are not available for the general public and that is the insertion of an acupuncture needle, in those points and thats going to stimulate the energy. If you went to an acupuncture clinic for treatment of your knee pain, they would put those needles in and perhaps stimulate them somewhat like that, may be use two use at the top, maybe use some of at the bottom. If your knee pain extends up the knee or down the leg the acupuncturist may also put further needles in. Now lets take those needles out and show you how you can use those points at home. With acupressure, which is the same technique its the same thing that the acupuncture needles are doing you want to take those points take any finger, you can take a single finger or you can take two fingers and just press in on those points with the fair amount of pressure, dont put yourself in pain. You are already in pain you dont want to exacerbate that pain. But press on those points and hold, you want to hold for an extended period of time, can be up to several minutes. So again now on this patients knee I just felt the relief under the knee cap, you may feel some slight movement, dont think thats just some muscle something moving out of the way that in fact is your body responding to the acupressure. Now, this patient has pain running along the side, so we are going to move up to the top of the knee and press and hold and then we are going to go across and up into the muscle band where this patient is feeling additional pain, just press and hold. When you have pain in acupuncture, you have a blockage maybe you just twisted an ankle wrong but you feel it in the knee. There is some problem with energy its not moving through this area. So what we are trying to do is move that out of the area by pressing on it primarily by leading it up or leading it down.