I got several bad hits on my right elbow at Kendo practice yesterday. My elbow was hurting on the day, but I was not feeling anything on my neck or upper back.
Today, I woke up with neck & upper back pain on the right side. My elbow was still hurting. I suspected that this elbow pain triggered the neck & upper back pain.
There are close connection between elbows and upper back area. In addition, upper back tightness often causes neck problems. Please check my case study examples here ↓
Case Study Examples: Elbow Pain
If I were to treat this kind of condition, I will first check the upper back area and compare the difference between right side and left side tightness. However, since this is my own body and it is difficult to compare the differences, I took another approach.
In the previous blog article, I wrote about mathematical beauty in human body. This is a quote from the article.
"The points in upper back linked to each points between metacarpals (1st and 2nd, 2nd and 3rd, etc.) are aligned in the mathematical order. "
This kind of linkage is also observed between certain points on elbow and upper back points. Because I know where exactly hurting on my elbow, I can guess which area on my upper back has a problem. Now, I have an idea of where the problem is on my upper back, I think about self treatable points related to that. This time I could use the point between 1st and 2nd metacarpals.
This point is happened to be the same location as Linggu in Master Tung's acupuncture. This location is close to the famous acupuncture point called Hegu(合谷, LI4). Some acupuncturists use Linggu as Hegu. Experienced acupuncturists naturally adjust several locations of Hegu depending on situations. SEIDO acupuncture actually defines 5 different points around Hegu (including Hegu). Each point has different functionalities. This is why the accuracy and precision in acupuncture point location is so important.
Needling right side Linggu immediately reduced pain on my right neck and upper back. I needled one more point on the forearm (Lu6) to release the left over tension on the upper back. To my surprise, my elbow was no longer hurting. I gotta love this medicine!
