The difference between acupuncture and massage

Regarding the core difference between acupuncture and massage in parallel, to be honest, it is not a right or wrong question of "can they be done together?", but that the two have completely different action paths, adaptation scenarios, and risk boundaries. Even different schools of traditional Chinese medicine have very different criteria for judging "whether they are suitable for parallelism" and cannot be generalized at all.

I have been practicing traditional Chinese medicine for almost ten years, and I have met too many patients who have the mentality of "it's better to get a full set of treatments than to do everything". Last week, an auntie had a stiff neck. She massaged her head for half an hour at a massage parlor in the community. Originally, she just had a headache, but after the massage she found it difficult to even raise her head, so she hurriedly came to see me for acupuncture. I pricked her on both sides of Houxi and Hegu. I performed the acupuncture for two minutes and asked her to slowly turn her neck, and most of it was loosened immediately. She also asked me why it hurt more when I pressed it, and the acupuncture just helped. Would it be better if the needle was inserted first and then pressed?

In fact, I have talked about this issue with many colleagues. Most of the traditional meridian doctors do not recommend doing both on the same day. As the old saying goes, "massage disperses qi, and acupuncture gathers qi." Massage itself uses external force to spread the blocked areas, which will drive the surface qi and blood to disperse. Acupuncture mobilizes the body's own qi along the meridians to remove the blocked points. If you use massage to disperse the qi just after it has been gathered, it will be a waste of time. I met a little girl who was doing spleen and stomach conditioning before. She was deficient in qi and blood. She had just had her Zhongwan and Zusanli pierced in the morning, and in the afternoon she and her friend did a full-body essential oil back massage. She developed a low fever in the evening and lay down for two days before she recovered. When feeling her pulse, it was so thin that it seemed almost invisible. It was obvious that the qi had dispersed and she could not hold it back. But colleagues in modern rehabilitation don’t see it that way. They believe that as long as the parts are staggered and the intensity is properly controlled, the combination of the two can speed up recovery. For example, for patients in the acute stage of lumbar prolapse, first apply Weizhong and Shenshu to suppress the pain, and then use light rolling to relax the tense muscles. The recovery speed of the quadratus lumborum and iliopsoas muscles is more than twice as fast as acupuncture or massage alone. I did this to my waist last year. After the acupuncture, the pain was reduced by 70%. After gently rubbing the deep adhesion points for ten minutes, I was able to go downstairs to buy food normally that day.

If you really want to talk about the difference between the two when they are parallel, look at the way of action first and they are not in the same dimension at all. Massage is truly "from the outside to the inside". Whether you use the rolling method, kneading method or stretching method, it is all transmitted by external force, which can penetrate into the deep muscles and fascia layers at most. To put it bluntly, it can only be effective if you can touch it with your hands. For remote treatment of diseases, such as pressing Hegu for toothache, it can at most provide slight relief. It is impossible to relieve the pain after inserting it for half a minute like acupuncture. Acupuncture is different. The filiform needles directly penetrate the skin and reach the acupuncture points. They can mobilize Qi and blood along the meridians without relying on brute force. Even if you prick the acupuncture points on your hands, you can also treat problems on the face and body. If you use them in reverse order, the effect will naturally be greatly reduced.

Another point that people rarely notice is that the risk points are completely different when the two are parallel. Most of the risks of massage come from "misusing force". For example, if an elderly person with osteoporosis presses the waist with too much force and breaks a bone, or if the neck is not pulled properly and the vertebral artery is injured, these are all physical injuries. ； The risks of acupuncture are mostly due to "inaccurate acupuncture selection" or insufficient disinfection. For example, when inserting the chest and back, the needle is inserted too deep into the lungs, causing pneumothorax, or the needle is not sterilized and causes infection. If you have just finished a violent massage and the local tissue is edematous and then insert the needle, it is easy to insert the misplaced muscles, which will aggravate the injury. This is the core reason why many people feel more pain after the "acupuncture + massage" package.

When I make plans for patients, I don’t make one-size-fits-all decisions. If there is acute pain, such as stiff neck, acute lumbar sprain, or gout attack, I will first insert an acupuncture to reduce the pain, and then use very light kneading to relax the surrounding tense muscles. As long as the intensity is controlled well, the recovery speed is really fast. ； If they are suffering from chronic conditioning, such as chronic insomnia, irregular menstruation, or weak spleen and stomach, I specifically tell them to wait at least 24 hours after the acupuncture before getting a massage, especially a full-body massage.

After all, there are actually no absolute taboos. The core still depends on what problem you want to solve and whether the practitioner you are looking for is reliable. Don't always think about "doing one more project to gain more advantages", what suits you is the best. After all, it is your body that suffers, right?