By Carleen Tralenberg, Registered Acupuncturist
When I was little, I loved that song “the leg bone is connected to the knee bone, the knee bones connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bones connected to the foot bone, now shake those skeleton bones…boom boom boom”. I can see you all toe tapping as you reconnect with that old tune.
We have all had that one injury that has plagued us repeatedly throughout adulthood. We have gone for treatment after treatment, and it may disappear for awhile, but then suddenly it reappears again (like the ghost of Christmas past)…old sports injuries, that time you wiped out shoveling (we all know this one well!), or that car accident 5 years ago. While we may get a diagnosis, we don’t always get long lasting relief.
The mechanics of our body is heavily dependent on all these tissues and bones working TOGETHER, and sometimes we forget that it isn’t just about the individual muscle, bones and connective tissue.
Yes, your knee problems stemmed from that hockey injury you got in grade ten. Now it creeps up on you periodically, most-likely as a direct result of sitting at a computer for 40 hours a week. The inevitable tightening of your hamstrings and the IT band that screams at you every time you try to roll it out.
What we have neglected to remember is that it isn’t just our bones that are connected.
Enter Acupuncture……not the IMS (intramusclular stimulation) kind.
Registered acupuncturists look at your “whole” body as a system when considering chronic injury. You aren’t just a sheath of skin and bone to us. We understand that in order for your muscles to heal properly, EVERYTHING in your body needs to be assessed. Is your digestive system working properly? If not, you may have spleen deficiencies that are causing an overall ‘qi’ (pronounced chi) deficiency. Essentially, your qi is not able to move your blood efficiently, and without proper circulation, our muscles don’t fire effectively.
Stressful job or home life? Acupuncture can help balance out the yin and yang, allowing your parasympathetic nervous system to activate, and now your body is healing ITSELF while you sleep. Magical.
So now when I sing that song in my head it includes my adapted version…”the heart is connected to the stomach, the liver is connected to the muscles……”
Because our body isn’t simply a set of separate units, it is one very well organized collective machine.