Acupuncture: Choosing points

Pregnancy nausea, in a patient very apprehensive about needles. Which area do you choose to start with pressure and no needling?

1. Over the styloid process of the radius, outer side
2. At the wrist crease, on the little-finger side
3. Two cun above the crease, on the outer forearm
4. Two cun above the crease, on the inner forearm

Years of dull low back pain with coldness and clear night urination. Over which area do you place the moxa?

1. At the base of the neck, below the seventh cervical vertebra
2. On the lower back, one and a half cun from the midline
3. In the hollow behind the knee
4. On the abdominal midline, above the navel

Spleen qi deficiency with fatigue and loose stools. What treatment skeleton?

1. Cleft points of the digestive channels
2. The Stomach channel's sea point, the Spleen's back-transport point and a midline abdominal point, with moxa
3. Well points on the hands to unblock

Acute pain on the outer thigh after an awkward movement, worse on pressure. What do you choose?

1. A distal point on the channel involved, that channel's cleft point, and a local point away from the worst spot
2. Tonify the Kidney, since all back and leg pain comes from there
3. Midline abdominal points with prolonged moxa

Local point or distal point?

• Easing the stiffness right where the patient pointsLocalDistal
• Lowering the yang that drives the headache upLocalDistal
• Relaxing the contracted trapezius muscleLocalDistal
• Treating the digestion behind the chronic mucusLocalDistal
• Acting on an inflamed, painful jointLocalDistal
• Calming the anxiety that triggers the palpitationsLocalDistal

On needling, the patient reports an electric pain running down the leg. What do you do?

1. Keep the needle in: that is the arrival of qi
2. Manipulate more to reinforce the sensation
3. Withdraw immediately and redirect: a nerve has been touched

Match each picture with the kind of stimulus it asks for.

Order the reasoning that goes from the patient to the combination.

1. Name the pattern and the organ involved↑↓
2. Decide whether to add or to remove↑↓
3. Choose the matching category of points↑↓
4. Choose the channel and the specific point↑↓
5. Decide the stimulus and whether to add heat↑↓