In today's video I'm going to talk about the amazing power of acupuncture for Bell's Palsy in my practice since 2003 I've seen it over and over how amazing acupuncture is for Bell's Palsy acupuncture is often the only safe natural effective way to treat Bell's Palsy especially if we can see the patients right after they've been diagnosed the earlier the better Hi I'm Claire welcome back to my channel and if this is your first time here I create Chinese medicine and acupuncture content for students and practitioners making it easy to grasp and fun to learn Let's do this Today I'm going to share the Western View on Bell's Palsy including believed cause symptoms and treatment then we'll dive into the Chinese medicine view pattern causes and treatment including acupuncture points food herbal formula and so many more treatment options and stay till the end because I'll have three simple strategies you can give your patients to do at home to add to your treatment as well I don't know if you have seen a lot of patients with Bell's palsy but I have over the years and the amazing outcome from acupuncture is something that we can't take for granted and we need to continue to educate the public on this option because a lot of people don't know they have this option and often the doctors may not know neither so the more we can put the word out there the better for the patient the better outcome for them and so the better the world right so when it comes to Bell's Palsy the Western perspective causes is not quite known often they will say it could be coming from a dormant viral infection like the Epstein-Barr virus or the Herpes virus or any kind of virus that's been dormant and kind of got activated maybe because the immune system got depleted there was a lot of stress they're not quite sure so the main symptoms of Bell's Palsy it looks kind of like a stroke or post-stroke it happens on one side of the face and what happened is the patient loses feeling and sensation on that side and the muscles start drooping so there's drooping of the eye sometimes drooping of the lip just on one side the eye sometimes can't close and has to stay open the eyelid is not able to close there's also sometimes pain from the facial nerve that gets activated fatigue headache tinnitus can also come up from those symptoms for some patients there will be ear pain jaw pain as well this whole one side of the face will be affected and it can create headache that goes all the way to the back and the solution to it is to wait and often it will resolve on itself between two to six months which is a long time to live with this condition however for some people it does not resolve at all so this is really important to try to help the patient as fast as possible right that makes sense when it comes to Western treatment there's not a lot of options Physical Therapy corticosteroids or antiviral medication is what patients have access to this is why we know acupuncture is such a good tool it's safe it's effective it's fast and it has no side effect so it's the best way right so today we're really gonna dive into the Chinese medicine view on this and how we can treat patients as effectively as we can so now let's talk about the Chinese medicine perspective on Bell's palsy causes wise we look at the fact that there is a long-standing amount of stress that depletes the immune system so it's basically Wood in the Five Element really insulting the Metal or Liver insulting Lung depleting the immune system right and then if there is an internal pathogen that's been sitting there for a while it kind of reactivates so it's really an immune system depleted by stress which is often what the Western medicine is saying and then the pattern or what happened is there's external pathogen Wind that invades the body really quickly and within 48 hours there's a quick change and now the person has half of the face or Hemiplegia Paralysis looking like Paralysis on the side of the face so external pathogen Wind is what creates this condition and it eventually it becomes internal so we need to treat it as soon as possible because it is still external pathogens makes sense so that's the cause and the symptoms and the main pattern now I'm going to look at each pattern what point we use what formula what are the symptoms so we can differentiate and do a really good deep dive into acupuncture treatment so let's talk about the two main common patterns when it comes to Bell's Palsy as you can see the first one is more of a deficiency type and the second one is more of a Nexus type they both have Wind because that's the external pathogen in Wind that starts the whole process so the first one which has been Spleen Qi sinking is rapid onset of mild weakness to total paralysis on one side of the face occurring within a couple of days right when it comes to Spleen Qi sinking remember it's going against gravity it's dropping down so facial drooping is very much one of the main symptoms specifically also eye drooping as well there is difficulty in closing the eyes or smiling not the eyes the eye because it's usually on one side of the face or smiling because one side is drooping as well so it's very hard to have or to make facial expression the person is also drooling there is excess saliva because when there is Spleen Qi sinking there is Spleen Qi deficiency prior to that so there usually is excess fluid because remember Spleen is in charge of Water metabolism so there's also sometimes a loss of sense of taste the person's not hungry they're really poor appetite they're exhausted very very very fatigued they have loose stools pale face pale tongue with teeth marks which is really a sign of stress you know when people are stressed they have tendency to clench their teeth and then eventually we get teeth marks and that depletes the Spleen because the Spleen gets fatigued the pulse is weak specifically in the middle right position which is the Spleen position when we compare this to blood stasis with Wind the same thing happened at the beginning which is the external Wind invasion there's a rapid onset of total paralysis on one side of the face which is occurring within a few hours so this one's a little faster than the first one and then there's going to be facial drooping and same thing difficulty in making facial expressions such as closing the eyes or smiling now the one more symptom that's different from the one before is because there is blood stasis remember blood stasis and TCM means purple and pain the two P's right purple and pain so there's got to be pain and usually it's a stabbing pain around the jaw behind the ear and around the head area which basically creates a bad constant headache and it affects the side of the face that's obviously been affected by the external Wind invading the body so it's really sensitivity to sound as well everything light and sound gets really amplified right the tongue is purple the pulse is choppy wiry often because it is due to again stress that created or activated the condition Yet another masterpiece thank you Clara this is one of the feedback I got on my Chinese Medicine Treatments Made Easy Book which covers over 160 common syndromes it ships all over the world or if you'd rather have the PDF it has a lot of video links to complement it it is absolutely one of my best books and it's so useful in clinical practice for students and practitioners click the link below and get your copy today So when you look at the points that are for Spleen Qi sinking we have to raise Spleen Qi raise the energy back up so we're going to use Spleen 6 for that Ren 6 Stomach 26 and Du 20 it really raises the energy and if you feel like the person is a little cold then you could add moxa on those points right then we are going to do points that are specifically for the facial area so Ren 24 and DU 26 are going to be on the chin and above the lip so to start really activate the muscle around the mouth to get smiling possibility and then we also going to do points that are all around the area affected like the Stomach Meridian specifically like Stomach 2 3 4 5 6 right around the jaw the eye and the mouth Stomach 7 which is right below the zygomatic arch which often there's a lot of pain there Stomach 8 also really useful specifically because it lifts energy and it's good to address the facial nerve and Gallbladder 3 so you can use any point on that area that you think would be the best suited for your patients San Jiao points can be used as well SJ 23 which is at the end of the eyebrow can be used Gallbladder 14 if you think there's a lot more that can be done you can put more this is just a basic right it makes sense okay so now let's talk about blood stasis blood stasis obviously we want to move blood we want to move Qi so the first point is LI 4 because it's the Commander point of the face it has to be there it commands the face right this is the most important point it is going to command the treatment also SJ 5 because it goes behind the ear and it goes around the eye area and this is a really good point when there's lots of stagnation specifically on the face with lots of pain now Stomach 45 is great to bring the energy down because usually your blood stasis is all the energy is up at the top with all this pain so we want to bring it down to the foot you can add up other points if you want like Liver 3 Gallbladder 34 that I often add for purpose of moving blood and then we want to do the same thing for the face right you pick the points on the face as you can see those are exactly the same point as the pattern above and you can choose to add more to it less to it depending on where the area that's affected is most prominent right this is really local point that you can use so that's pretty simple we want to raise the Qi or we want to move blood stasis and then we want to go where facial area is make sense awesome so we did all the points and now we want to do Electro acupuncture to add to our point prescription often with Electro acupuncture I will do Stomach 7 and Stomach 8 or maybe Stomach 6 and Stomach 4 you can put also both right two different prongs so with E-stim I will usually do very low setting we don't want to be sharp and strong we want to be very gentle for about 10 minutes of the treatment and then I'll take it off and leave the patients with another 20-25 minutes with the needles I think that works really really well E-stim is really helpful in getting circulation and activating the nerves the second treatment option is your acupuncture I love ear acupuncture it's one of my favorite micro system because it works so well and in general I'm going to use points like the cheek the jaw the ear you could use the eye you can use the lips as well and then Shen Men and you can put ear seeds on your patient so they can activate and acupressure those seeds while they're away in between treatment how often do I see patients when it comes to Bell's Palsy usually I try to tell the patient that it'd be great to come at least twice to three times a week depending on the schedule and what can be done for them but at least twice not less than that three times a week would be much more effective or faster two times a week still works quite well in my 20 years of practice since 2003 usually for most patients it takes about four to six weeks to get everything back to normal for some patient it took less than two weeks because they came right away and that's the power of the internet because everybody is more educated now or they look it up and they see acupuncture and they start getting immediate assistance and support which that's the best outcome for us another treatment option is moxa it's really good to use moxa you can show your patients how to do it on the facial area just around here to get some heat and moxa 10 minutes every day would be really really good to bring circulation and to help the process of healing much faster the next treatment option is Gua Sha I love Gua Sha I think it's underutilized and what I do when it comes to Bell's Palsy is I will do Gua Sha on the facial area that's affected prior to needling for about 10 minutes to really activate the muscle and get some movement and circulation then I will needle do some E-stim so for 10 minutes so we'll get a lot of activation there and then for the last 20-25 minutes I'll let the patient rest and the patient's body ability to self-regulate on its own with low stimulation now one of the things we don't talk often for Bell's Palsy is food or nutrition which is kind of odd to me because the digestive system is at the center of our health this is really important so we want to have food that boosts the immune system so our body can fight and improve circulation and healing right that's what we want to look for so what do we recommend patients to add to their diet and to avoid in general add up seeds like sesame seeds pumpkin seeds which are great in zinc reishi mushrooms are going to add a black strap molasses is a good one in general we want to avoid as well to eat processed food and food that create internal Wind or excess Wind like eggs or shellfish or pork so that's for the food perspective so we haven't talked about Chinese herbal formulas when it comes to Bell's Palsy however there are some formulas we can use in conjunction with everything else however I think the physical therapy like acupuncture regular acupuncture and everything that we've talked about is really very effective when it comes to Spleen Qi sinking one of the pattern of Bell's Palsy like we talked earlier the best formula is Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang which means tonify the middle and raise the Qi it's a really good formula the main King Herb in that formula is Huang Qi which is Astragalus and Astragalus is really good in boosting the immune system and raising energy so that's a good formula for this the other one is for blood stasis so if there is blood stasis there's tons of formulas for blood stasis that are going to be really useful like Tao Hong Si Wu Tang is really good when there's a lot of pain and it'll move a lot of blood so that works quite well as well however the formulas are not going to be enough or the most important part of the treatment the physical one is the most important part like moxa like Gua Sha like E-stim or regular acupuncture and specifically acupuncture itself facial massage can be used as well at the beginning of this video I talked about three strategies you can tell your patients to do at home to speed up the healing process in between sessions we talk about ear seeds moxa Gua Sha they can do all this at home however wearing an eye patch is essential to give the eye a rest also hydrating eye drops will help because the eye will dry so fast if the lid does not close and one more thing is to find ways to meditate and destress relaxation methods because all this starts with an amount of stress that created the depleted immune system so it's really important people or patients find ways to meditate and de-stress those are three strategies I think you should recommend to your patients because they work really well I've seen it in the last 20 years of my practice have you seen this replay of the live video on acute pain and acupuncture watch it it's one of my most popular one thank you for watching today the power of acupuncture for Bell's Palsy if you have any questions leave them in the comments below and if you found this video of value please share it with others and subscribe that's all I'm asking of you lots more on my website enjoy have a fantastic day and no matter what keep rocking it using TCM