Chinese Medicine for Physical Injury and Trauma  

This month I want to address the use of Chinese Medicine and acupuncture in the treatment of physical injury and trauma.  Many professional sports teams these days are adopting these techniques and rightly so: Chinese Medicine can speed the recovery of these kinds of injuries and sometimes quite significantly.

Trauma is certainly not limited to those who play sports but is something to which we are all vulnerable. From trips and falls to car accidents and post-surgical trauma, Chinese Medicine in its various forms is capable of addressing it all.

The treatment of injuries in Chinese medicine developed largely from the martial arts tradition and is called Die Da Medicine, variously translated as Fall and Hit Medicine or Iron Hit Medicine. 

Historically, masters of the martial arts were also masters of medicine, and had at their disposal many techniques to help heal the variety of injuries that are likely with martial arts practice.  

Included in their skills were acupuncture, massage, bone-setting, and a variety of herbal medicines used both internally and externally.

Acupuncture, herbal medicine, and other techniques work to stop bleeding, lessen bruising, reduce inflammation and pain, increase range of motion, and cut healing time dramatically. The sooner treatment is begun the better. (For real emergencies at the initial trauma, please go to the ER.) 

Of course acupuncture and an appropriate herbal prescription is only available from a qualified practitioner but there is much one can know about self-care with these injuries. To learn more about self-care, and also find out why Chinese Medicine generally discourages the use of ice with injuries, this video will be instructive.

To read more about the history of Die Da medicine (and to see a very cool martial arts website where there is much to learn), click here.

And to read about a practitioner whose clients are NFL players, this link will work.

Integral to Die Da medicine is a variety of herbal formulas and external liniments. In this section I want to introduce you to Yunnan Bai Yao ("white powder from Yunnan") and a smattering of liniments.

Yunnan Bai Yao is famous in China for its use to arrest bleeding.  The powder can be put on a cut/wound directly, and it can be taken internally as well to treat and prevent internal hemorrhage. I have used it to arrest bleeding a couple of times on myself and can attest to its effectiveness. To learn more about this formula I believe we should all have in our medicine chests click here.

And, although some are more popularly used than others, there is a large variety of Chinese liniments available for external use on bruises, over fractures, and with other contusions. THEY ARE NEVER TO BE USED ON OPEN WOUNDS OR RAW SKIN, but are otherwise great for speeding recovery from these kinds of injuries.  To see a variety click here.

I thought is would be fun here to watch some martial arts videos to prove that these guys are bad muthas (in a good way) and to see for yourselves the likelihood of  injuries that are possible in these disciplines.

I am particularly intrigued with the "Iron" kung fu traditions.  Variously referred to as Iron Body, Iron Shirt, Iron Throat, Iron Palm, Iron Head, and Iron Crotch or Iron Penis (I dare you to google or go to Youtube with that one, that'll top self-tongue diagnosis for sure), these are trainings where various parts of the body are developed to be incredibly strong and to withstand repeated blows. 

There is great beauty and refinement of course in the martial arts as well as great strength and skill.  To see a few videos, click here (iron body stuff), here (an example of a few animal traditions), and here (beats So You Think You Can Dance any day), and go see Kung Fu Panda 2!