Korean Hand Therapy

[lucy rantzen]

thanks v much Ophir!
Lucy

[Tim Cleary]

Further to this discussion- I've found Koryo Sooji Chim supplies at acuneeds.com - although it annoys the hell out of me that they don't include GST in their prices...


Tim.

[melindam]

From my very very limited experience as a patient, rather than a practitioner, I had an interesting experience with hand acupuncture as a diagnostic tool.

Oneday at uni I was suffering from really bad dysmenorrhoea and a Korean friend showed me the correlations of the hand to the body ie. head, stomach etc. Amazingly where I was experiencing the pain in my lower abdomen, I had a very severe pain in my hand which correlated to this point (but no other points on my hand had that pain). She suggested I poke at this point with a pen tip (no ink) - so I didn't even have to use a needle - more like acupressure I suppose. It did help ease some of the pain - a bit like massaging LI4 when you have a headache.

Anyway, interestingly if I poke at that same point on my hand when I am well there is no such pain.

I would be interested to hear of other people's experience with it.

Melinda

[Tim Cleary]

I believe that your experience is very similar to that of the inventor of Koryo Sooji Chim (KHT)- he had a headache one night and couldn't sleep, wound up sitting at his desk fidgeting with a pen- dug it into a spot that really hurt- and the headache was gone.. so he started from there..

I use my very limited knowledge of the hand microsystem in symptomatic treatments- primarily with hinaishin- intradermal needles- as per Manaka.. Three hinaishin to relieve a stubborn symptom. One in the related ear point, one in the related hand point and one on the body. Works quite well (after root and normal symptomatic treatments are applied- this is 'home-delivered' treatment to extend the effects..) and patients seem to like the fact that a) you've put in the effort, and b) everything is demonstrated to be connected.. Oh, and c) it relieves the symptoms very well...

The weird part is that sometimes I can't find any good pain on either hand, anywhere near where the reflex zone is meant to be... Anyone else?

Tim.

[Ilan]

Thanks to all those people who have replied.

I have dont a bit of research into KHT now.


At uni we were told to write an essay on a microsystem. I loved how a microsystem was limited to ear and scalp only.
I have writen a 3000 word essay on KHT as the ear and scalp didnt appeale to me incredibly and i will share some of the things i found.
KHT offers so much more and i will share a little and see what others have to say.

Dr Yoo Tae Woo is accredited with discovering KHT. He studied oriental medicine and was a lecturer at Korea Silroam Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion for five years.

Prior to his discovery, Dr Woo had been working on intensive research to find ways to make acupuncture more effective and less painful. One evening in 1971, he woke with severe pain at the back of his head. For reasons he did not know, he began massaging the back of his middle finger. Using the back of a pen, he localized an area which was painful. He then inserted a needle into this area, and instantaneously his headache was relieved.

This set him on a journey of discovery to determine what other secrets and parallels the hand has to the body. It is conceivable that Dr Woo’s desire to find another form of acupuncture was formed due to frustration with Chinese medicine. Ultimately, it was the fact that acupuncture produced pain and other side effects, which motivated him to develop a method of acupuncture that was not painful or dangerous.

In Dr Woo’s view, the benefits of KHT over other forms of Microsystems acupuncture, and normal acupuncture for that matter, are:
• it is easily accessible,
• patients experience less pain,
• patients do not need to remove items of clothing,
• it is more relieving and faster acting than TCM,
• consideration does not need be given to damaging organs or other side effects.

The wide range of illnesses that can be treated using KHT are identical to TCM. KHT is an independent method which can be used in a complementary fashion or in combination with other forms of treatment.

Certain evidence relating to acupuncture may make some of these perceived benefits open to doubt. For example, according to the Safety Record of Acupuncture, accidental injuries to internal organs have been infrequently reported since 1958 in the United States, West Germany, England, Israel, Ireland, Australia, Japan, China, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland (http://nationalacupuncturefoundation.org/pages/publications/safety_chart.html)

• In China and Japan, both of which perform thousands of treatments annually, only ten injuries to internal organs have been reported since 1972,
• No injuries have been reported from Korea, and
• In the United States, only ten incidents of injury have been reported since 1965.

While this evidence could be explained by the fact that many injuries are not reported, it still has the capacity to shed doubt on some of the benefits of KHT proposed by Dr Woo.

I have more but would like to see what comments others might have before we get into the theory. Perhaps ophir who has studied this in korea might comment more?

On a recent trip to japan a practitioner had told me that he had studied KHT indepth and that he had found some flaws with the system.
He wouldnt share them with me at the time and still wont!

Perhaps once we get into the theory more these might be revealed