Sensitive people sometimes feel fatigued the day after an acupuncture treatment.
Dose is a very important factor to take into account when treating sensitive people. In Toyohari, we use a lower-dose treatment when working with sensitive people, offering a gentle approach to balancing the body-mind.
The main factors that I take into account when working with sensitive people are:
- the speed that the Ki moves
- the level of fatigue you are experiencing
- chronic diseases you may be suffering from
- texture of the skin
- whether you sweat easily in response to treatment
- how you feel the day after treatment.
Ki
Ki (qi) moves quickly in a sensitive person. The needling technique needs to match your Ki. So if your Ki moves quickly, you will respond to treatment more quickly.
Fatigue and chronic disease
If your energy is low or you’ve been unwell for a long time, we need to treat the body gently. If there is a lot of stagnation and your ki isn’t circulating as well as it could, we don’t want to move your ki too much or too strongly. A lower dose treatment is supportive in these cases.
Sweat
If you sweat during a treatment (and the sweat isn’t caused by the room temperature or a virus or other factors), you may have received more treatment than your body needs at the time. If a patient sweats during a treatment, I stop the treatment straight away to preserve your Ki.
After treatment
As mentioned above, sensitive people sometimes feel more tired post-treatment. If this tiredness is felt the day after, then the treatment may have been too strong. Keep a diary of how you feel post-treatment and always let your practitioner know how you felt in between acupuncture sessions.
The concepts discussed in this article are presented within a Traditional East Asian Medicine (TEAM) framework and are intended for educational purposes only.
