🌿 Folk Prescriptions

In my clinical practice, I often encounter patients asking: "We've been treating a certain illness with other methods for a long time, but the results have been poor—can acupuncture help?" In fact, if such conditions are promptly treated with acupuncture, not only can treatment time be shortened, but no toxic side effects will be caused to the body. We have every reason to believe that the regulatory and therapeutic effects of acupuncture on diseases remain vastly underappreciated and underutilized.
A patient had suffered from umbilical infection and swelling pain for two weeks. The red and swollen area was as large as a bowl, so swollen that the navel was completely hidden. Touching it intensified the pain, and the temperature was significantly higher than surrounding areas, accompanied by systemic fever. After nearly one week of treatment at a hospital with the best antibiotics available, there was no improvement, and the patient could not stand upright, only bending forward to relieve abdominal muscle tension and reduce pain. Later, a friend referred him to me, asking whether acupuncture could help. I said yes. After analyzing his condition, I selected two acupoints on his lower limbs, inserted needles, and the patient experienced an intense electric-like sensation radiating to the inner thigh and toe tips. At the same time, I gently massaged the painful swollen area for about half an hour. The pain greatly decreased. After needle removal, he could straighten up, and upon checking the umbilical region, the swelling had visibly reduced. His sleep also improved that night. After four treatments, only a hard lump remained at the umbilicus, while all other areas had returned to normal. Subsequent surgical incision at the hospital revealed a black, bean-sized foreign body, after which he fully recovered.
Patient Liu, a judo athlete, developed a boil on his thigh measuring approximately 6×6 cm, with redness, swelling, heat, and pain. This athlete had frequently suffered from boils before, and based on past experience, recovery typically took at least ten days. However, this occurred just before the quadrennial Asian Games, and failure to heal in time would affect competition performance. I decided to treat him with acupuncture. He was surprised, thinking acupuncture couldn’t cure bacterial diseases, but agreed reluctantly to avoid jeopardizing his competition. After the first acupuncture session, he immediately felt significant relief from redness and pain. Within several days, he was fully healed.
Seeing these cases, some may find it puzzling: Can acupuncture kill bacteria? Impossible, right?
Indeed, acupuncture cannot directly kill bacteria. The therapeutic effect of acupuncture on bacterial diseases does not act directly on bacteria themselves, but rather improves the internal environment of the human body, disrupting the conditions necessary for bacterial survival. Once these conditions are compromised, bacterial proliferation is inhibited, and the resulting disease naturally resolves.
Looking again at these cases, why did prolonged antibiotic use fail to produce results? Clinically, we often observe this phenomenon. People commonly attribute this outcome to bacterial resistance or similar factors—this is certainly one possible explanation. However, we know that in infected sites, swelling is severe, and blood circulation is markedly impaired. All clinically used antibiotics must reach the lesion via blood circulation. Under such conditions, antibiotics struggle to arrive at the site. Therefore, poor efficacy of antibiotic therapy in many infections cannot ignore the critical role of poor microcirculation at the affected site.
Additionally, when healthy, the body’s smooth flow of qi and blood enables various specific and nonspecific antibacterial factors to inhibit or directly/indirectly kill bacteria. When blood circulation is obstructed at the diseased site, these protective mechanisms weaken or disappear entirely. Careful analysis reveals that wherever bacteria overproliferate, the body has usually already experienced dysfunction, leading to poor local circulation. In essence, impaired microcirculation is a prerequisite for bacterial survival and reproduction. Acupuncture effectively improves this state, destroying the environment bacteria depend on, enabling antibacterial factors to reach the affected area. Thus, the disease naturally heals.