I’m treating knee pain being this specific ligament injury the most common for the last few months. Anterior cruciate ligament injuries most commonly occur during sports that involve sudden stops or changes in direction, pivoting, cutting, jumping, and landing. These factors are always involved on basketball and football therefore this type of injury happens on young and middle age patients.
In Chinese Medicine, acute traumatic injury to the ligaments leads to blood stasis and swelling, which blocks the meridians (responsible to maintain the blood flowing smoothly through the knee) and results in pain. As the injury becomes chronic, the liver which is responsible to keep the tendons hydrated and nourished in the knee, gets deficient.
As the Liver gets deficient, the Kidneys come next appearing edema. In Chinese Medicine, Liver and Kidney affect each other. The kidneys follow because the liver “wood” and the kidney “water” always affect each other.
The “funny” thing is that when edema appears, more difficult is to treat the knee injury. That’s why it is extremely necessary to combine your medical treatment with acupuncture and Chinese medicine to avoid your kidneys getting deficient.
Herbal Medicine is usually necessary, otherwise there is no a real healing. Why? Because we need to cool the blood (Inflammation makes blood hotter), expel the wind (it invades the meridians because there is not blood circulating) and reduce the swelling (Kidneys get deficient so edema is water stagnation).
A combination of acupuncture, Tui Na massage and herbal medicine is the most complete and effective course of action.
It is advised that between sessions the patients should follow:
- The affected leg should avoid bearing weight for at least four to six weeks.
- Try to avoid bending the affected knee.
- The quadriceps muscles should be trained during the recovery period.
- Patients should consider adding a brace to the injured knee and using a crutch to avoid putting weight on the injured leg.
- To prevent edema, the patient is advised to raise the affected leg higher than the heart while lying supine.
- Patients should be advised to avoid Fa Wu diet. Fa Wu foods are the foods that may cause more inflammation and bring back old injuries. Some examples of Fa Wu foods are shellfish such as crab and shrimp, fish, fried foods, lamb, duck, chocolate, garlic, and green onions. This concept applies to both acute and chronic strains.
AcuRodos – Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine Clinic
Riverdale House, Main Street, Clonee Village, D15 YT3Y
Ph: 089 400 5106
Photo by Semen Zhuralev
