[Case study] Acupuncture helps with the recurrence of right ankle sprain

One patient, male, forty years old, Asian, complained of a sore right ankle. The patient had a sprained ankle two years ago and was treated by a physiotherapist and acupuncturist, including electro-acupuncture treatment. He said that it took a long time for the treatment to recover. It has not been triggered by any certain external force recently, and he felt quite sore and painful on the outside of his right ankle, which made him unable to fall asleep. He had to take pain killer for pain relief by GP.

The current symptoms are local swelling of the right ankle, obvious inversion of the ankles on both sides, and more obvious on the right. The patient is sturdy, and his right ankle is unbearable for his weight, so he walks with a limp. The tendon and muscles around the Kunlun point are tight.

The patient’s condition is a mixture of deficiency and excess in TCM view, and the deficiency of the local meridian is the main cause. The treatment is also based on supplementation, taking care of dredging the local meridians. After three or four times of acupuncture treatments, the effect is quite obvious. When the patient comes back, he can walk normally and the soreness has almost disappeared. Taking into account that the local area/meridian is in a chronic weak situation, and the ankle is deformed, so after that, it is still necessary to continue a period of consolidation treatment.

Here are some issues I would like to discuss according to this case:

First, as therapists, we should always reflect on whether we provide the most effective treatment for patients. This is what my TCM master often said to me. As an acute disease of ankle sprain, this patient had been treated for quite a long period 2 years ago. There is a great probability that it was not cured by the therapist, but the pain disappeared by the patient through the self-compensation of his own body. These kinds of similar cases are very common. But the disappearance of this pain comes at a price: local deformation occurs. And this kind of deformation cannot build a stable rebalanced of the body. Therefore, after a period of time, the pain will return, and it will turn from an excess situation to a deficient one, where the difficulty of treatment will increase a lot.

Second, the western medical system likes to use auxiliary tools in the treatment, such as partial fixation with bandages, and special insoles to correct the valgus and varus of the foot. The patient in this case has used it. These methods are inconsistent with the treatment concept of Chinese medicine, at least with my own treatment concept. In the process of acupuncture treatment, I normally ask patients to move the affected area. Because of inactivity, the blood won’t circulate well. Life energy is flowing, and the effect of correcting and restoring in the process of movement is the best way of recovery with a professional guide. I also don’t think using insoles to correct is a good way. Except for the same reason, it is impossible for the insole to be attached to the foot for a lifetime without taking it off, so that it is difficult for the human body to correct itself through the correct adjustment method, and thus return to a natural state of righteousness. Of course, individual exceptions are beyond the scope of this discussion.

The third is the concept of excess and deficiency that I have always emphasized. In the treatment system of Western medicine, there is no concept of yin and yang, deficiency and excess. Objectively speaking, this kind of local meridian with symptoms of deficiency is hard to be effectively treated out of the TCM system. This was originally the strength of TCM treatment, but now some TCM practitioners ignore diagnosing the deficiency. Even if the symptoms are deficiency, they like to take electroacupuncture, bloodletting, and other strong stimulation ways like “drinking poison to quench thirst”. Even if the rule of law is effective in the short term, it will inevitably leave some regrets.