How does one react to emergencies like a fainting or panic attack, heart attack, or stroke? According to Ellen Nguyen, traditional Chinese medicine has always had a first aid method.
When someone fainted, in the old days when there was no Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) methods were used to give first aid, but nowadays, few people use it.
According to TCM professionals, first aid in Chinese medicine is simpler and more effective than in Western medicine.
First aid is a race against time to find out quickly and use the appropriate methods to save the patient immediately. Hong Kong-registered Chinese medicine practitioner Irene Yuen teaches you effective first aid methods in traditional Chinese medicine when faced with an emergency, such as a heart attack or stroke in her program “100 Diseases, 100 Ways to Heal.”
Cardiovascular disease: The number one health killer
According to the American Heart Association’s 2021-2022 Annual Report, cardiovascular disease is responsible for 17 million deaths worldwide yearly.
Cardiovascular diseases, such as heart disease and stroke, are the number one killer in the United States, killing one American every 33 seconds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About 805,000 people have a heart attack yearly in the United States, and one person has a heart attack every 40 seconds. About 695,000 Americans died of heart disease in 2021.
First aid acupuncture point: An effective way to save lives
Ruan Ailian, a Chinese medicine practitioner, suggests that ambulance personnel can learn the acupoint first aid method in Chinese medicine, as they are the first to come into contact with the patient, and it is better for them to learn it. Chinese medicine has discovered that the human body has a system of “meridians,” which are the channels through which energy flows.
There are 12 meridians in the body that are connected to the 12 internal organs of the body. Some points on the meridians are called acupuncture points, and by stimulating the corresponding acupuncture points through acupuncture and tui-na, one can treat the diseases of the corresponding internal organs.
First aid for a fainting spell or panic attack
Ruan Ailian talked about an example of first aid for syncope. The patient, who was in her fifties, came for acupuncture treatment for shoulder pain, but the first time she had acupuncture, she fainted out of fear. The first thing she did was to remove the needles and then immediately push the patient’s acupuncture points, and she woke up about five minutes later.
Ruan Ailian said that in such cases as fainting spells or panic attacks, the patient should be helped to lie flat on the bed, covered with a quilt to keep warm, and then the acupuncture points should be pushed and manipulated, and the patient will soon wake up.
In Chinese folklore, a fainting or panic attack is usually treated by pressing the “Renzhong point” in the upper third of the midline of the nasolabial groove. Ruan Ailian says that pressing this point vigorously with the fingernails can alleviate a fainting spell or panic attack, as it is located at the intersection of the Ren and Du channels, and pressing it can wake the person up from the fainting spell or panic attack.
Pressing the Nei Guan and Shaofu points for a heart attack
According to Ruan Ailian, the Nei Guan and Shaofu points are critical for first aid in case of a sudden heart attack. The Nei Guan point is on the inside of the wrist, three fingers’ width up from the transverse wrist line. Ruan says that the body’s organs are all connected to different meridians, and the Nei Guan point is on the “pericardium meridian”, so pressing this point will reflect the heart, acting as a heart-strengthening shot.
Another point is the Shaofu point, located between the fourth and fifth metacarpal bones, where the tip of the little finger points when clenched in a fist. The Shaofu point is on the “heart meridian,” and pressing it hard can also reflect the heart. Ruan Ailian once personally helped her husband’s father with first aid in Chinese medicine.
She said that the first time her husband fell ill at home, he suddenly lost his heartbeat, and even when she took his pulse, he had no pulse. Ruan Ailian immediately pressed on his Shaofu acupuncture point, and in about five minutes, Jiaoweng woke up and returned to normal. But half a year later, when he had his second attack, he was resuscitated with eight needles in hospital and still died.
First Aid acupuncture point for a stroke
Ruan Ailian said that in Chinese medicine, there is a key acupuncture point for first aid in a stroke called the Shixuan point, located at the edge of the fingertips of the 10 fingers. In some cases of stroke, herbalists can use bloodletting therapy to bring relief, whereby they can pierce the tips of each of the ten fingers with a needle and squeeze a little blood out of each.
This release of blood from the fingertips keeps the blood from being held in the head and allows the pressure in the head to be released. In theory, strokes can be divided into closed and decompensated. If a patient has a stroke and the practitioner judges that the symptoms are closed-cell, i.e., unclear consciousness, red face, closed teeth, clenched hands, and incontinence, then bloodletting is suitable; however, if the symptoms are weak breath, cold sweat, and incontinence, then bloodletting is not suitable.
Each person’s condition is different, and the cause of the stroke is also different, so it is recommended to consult a medical practitioner or a Chinese medicine practitioner before performing the relevant first aid treatment.
As a word of caution, bloodletting is a medical procedure and should only be performed after diagnosis by a qualified TCM practitioner. Also, patients with diabetes should be careful to avoid wound infection.
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