This week’s post is a short case study on a
54-year-old female, veteran, and cyber security analyst with Frozen Shoulder
rooted in prolonged grief and PTSD. I will call her “Holly” to protect her
identity and remain HIPPA compliance. I also have her written and oral
consent to discuss her case.
Holly’s
History
Holly was injured while on active military
duty, where she sustained multiple injuries and sexual trauma. Of her physical
injuries, her low back and knees have been in chronic pain for about 20 years.
Additionally, her son passed away from a car
accident five years ago, and within 6 months, her sister passed away from COVID
complications. This grief, which she still experiences today, has been
reflected in left frozen shoulder. Due to these events, she has also been
formally diagnosed with prolonged grief syndrome.
Treating
Holly
I have been working with Holly for about a
year treating her with acupuncture, auricular acupuncture, massage therapy, and
injection therapy. Initially, we focused on her low back symptoms which
included lumbar muscle tightness, sciatica pain shooting down her right leg,
left hip pain when walking, and occasional feet numbness. I used well
researched acupuncture points that provided Holly with great relief of her
sciatica pains and low back muscle tightness. Among the points, Urinary Bladder
(UB) 23, Kidney (KD) 3, and Gallbladder (GB) 29, were used most frequently.
These points treat the symptoms as well as the root of her problems. I was able
to reduce her pain from 8/10 to a 2/10 in 8 sessions and have maintained the
relief since then.
Most recently, we have been addressing her
left Frozen Shoulder that started shortly after the passing of her sister due
to the extreme grief and drastic life changes in a very short period. Because
of this, she has a very limited range of motion with her left arm as well as
muscle weakness.
Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture
In Chinese Medicine, each internal organ has
its own set of characteristics, functions, and responsibilities. Each major
organ, like the lungs and liver, are paired with a bowel organ, like the large
intestine and gallbladder. The lungs are associated with the emotion of grief,
and its paired organ is the large intestine. The meridian of the lung starts at
the top of our chest, near the outside edge of the lungs, runs through the
front of our shoulders and ends at the tip of our thumbs.
If you have experienced a sudden loss of a
loved one, you understand that it can be very difficult to process, heal, and
move on with your daily activities. In Holly’s case, experiencing two major
losses left her body ‘stuck’ in grief, which has manifested along the course of
the lung meridian, and resulted in Frozen Shoulder.
Additionally, Holly also developed large
intestine issues in this same timeframe. She was diagnosed with multiple colon
polyps a year after the passing of her son and sister. This shows how the
paired organs function together from a Chinese Medicine perspective.
There is not enough research on this topic
since prolonged grief was only given a diagnosis code in the last 10 years.
However, based on Acupuncture and the ancient texts used to study the
foundation of Chinese Medicine, the lung points 3, 7, and 10 in combination
with large intestine points 4 and 15, as well as others, are used to help with
both the emotion grief and the pain associated with Frozen Shoulder.
How Acupuncture Works
The inability for Holly to have processed
these traumatic events created stagnation in the lung and large intestine
meridians. The needles placed along these meridians send signals to the brain,
causing a cascade of nerve responses that remove the stagnation, or blockages.
But, this does not happen in one or two sessions. This process takes time and
consistency. The rule of thumb is for the amount of time you have been in pain,
it will take about the same amount of time to fully clear the problem. Now, before
you decide to stop reading, we also take into account the person’s lifestyle,
nutrition and dietary habits, and any other health issues that may be happening
at the same time to determine the approximate recovery time.
Holly’s Evolution with Acupuncture
I started focusing fully on Holly’s frozen
shoulder and prolonged grief after the first initial 8 treatments and cleared
her low back pain issues. It has been about a year since she started weekly and
sometimes bi-weekly sessions focusing on her prolonged grief and frozen
shoulder.
Holly is now able to do the following, which
she was incapable of doing prior to receiving acupuncture treatments:
*
Speak about
her son and sister without crying
*
Move her left
shoulder 40° more in each direction
*
Start
exercising
*
Speak about
her PTSD traumas while in the military
*
Be able to
spend time with her remaining family without falling into a depressed state
after
Initially, Holly would not speak in detail
about her feelings, not with me or with her mental health counselor. It took
about 10 sessions for her to be able to fully open up and speak about many
feelings she was holding on to. This is when we both started seeing bigger
improvements happen. She even started speaking more openly with her mental
health counselor.
Conclusion
In moving the stagnation from the lung and
large intestine meridians, we have been able to make and sustain these changes
in Holly. Our current focus is to work on her emotion of fear; specifically her
fear of being able to move her left shoulder fully and freely. I will discuss
this aspect next month, so stay tuned!
If you or a loved one is living with chronic
pain that you believe started with a traumatic event in their life, and are
ready to truly heal, please click here to schedule your appointment.
In Healing Light,
Dr. Michelle Zamora
