YNSA Indications, Contraindications, and Side Effects

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YNSA Indications, Contraindications, and Side Effects

“The sages do not treat those who have already fallen ill, but rather those who are not yet ill.”

“When medical therapy is initiated only after someone has fallen ill, … it is as though someone has waited to dig a well until he is already weak with thirst. Is this not too late?”—Huang-di Nei-jing Su-wen

“YNSA is a fast acting, reliable, time-saving method for treatment of many types of illnesses, disabilities, and painful conditions.”¹ – Toshikatsu Yamamoto, MD, PhD

Indications for YNSA

The indications for the use of YNSA in patients are many. The requirements for the use of YNSA include:

• Positive history for disease, trauma, dysfunction, pain, or illness that could be benefited by the use of acupuncture or YNSA.

• Finding a positive YNSA neck, abdomen, or pulse diagnosis is necessary to determine which particular YNSA acupuncture point (acupoint) is needed regardless of whether treatment is required for disease or prevention.

Thus, armed with these two requirements, the practitioner may try to improve health, alleviate dysfunction, and/or resolve disease. In conjunction with a cooperative patient without contraindications, the trained, licensed practitioner may now begin to use YNSA.

The medical and surgical indications for YNSA are many and diverse. In clinical cases, YNSA has been used to treat hundreds of various diseases. These include organ and systemic diseases and/or dysfunction affecting the musculoskeletal, neurological, psychological, genitourinary, digestive, circulatory, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems and special senses. Good success is routinely achieved with neurological and musculoskeletal disorders with the use of YNSA as either a primary or complementary treatment. These disorders include headache, neuritis, neuropathies, migraine, trigeminal neuralgia, Meniere’s disease, Bell’s palsy, other entrapment neuropathies, intercostal neuralgia, adhesive capsulitis, tennis elbow, sciatica, low back pain, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and radiculopathies of the cervical and lumbar spine. YNSA has been quite effective as a complementary treatment of both chronic and acute pain.2 Some other conditions where YNSA has been helpful include: upper motor neuron loss or lesions resulting in dysfunction, lower motor loss or lesions resulting in dysfunction, sensory loss and dysfunctions, neuroendocrine dysfunctions and disease, and visceral dysfunctions and disease. Obviously, only a few YNSA treatments cannot change anatomical lesions or structure pathology such as tumors or blood clots.

The indications for YNSA as primary treatment include all acute pain conditions if no anatomical underlying cause is known. It is amazing how rapidly proper YNSA needle placement in the scalp will cause acute pain to immediately abate. Other indications for YNSA treatment that may be either primary or complementary are summarized in Table 2–14 in Chapter 2.

YNSA’s most dramatic effect is in the treatment of pain, dysfunction, and neurological diseases. Finally, YNSA is indicated when a positive YNSA neck or YNSA abdominal diagnosis is found. If you do not find positive findings upon standard medical physical examination, TCM examination, or YNSA neck or abdominal diagnosis findings, then YNSA is not indicated.

Contraindications for YNSA

There are very few contraindications for a trained YNSA physician and a willing patient to participate in this form of medical acupuncture. The primary responsibility of the physician is to make a medical diagnosis with particular attention to the neuromusculoskeletal and visceral systems. Following a history, physical, and acupuncture (YNSA and/or TCM [Eight Principles and/or Five Phases]) examination, a working diagnosis is made. YNSA may then be used as a therapeutic means to alleviate pain and suffering and to improve physiological function. With that being said, the contraindications to YNSA include:

• Systemic infection and certain critically ill patients

• Needling into a scalp skin infection or ulceration

• Needling over a fontanelle or where the cranial bone has been surgically removed

• Negative TCM or YNSA diagnostic procedures

Situations where YNSA requires caution and/or restraint are the following: forceful manipulation of the needle, patients with organic or iatrogenic bleeding conditions, pregnant women, patients with previous needle shock, young children, infants, and neonates. Concern needs to be taken regarding the patient’s physical, psychological, and nutritional status. The following patients should probably not be treated according to TCM tradition, which is in agreement with YNSA:

• Those on an empty stomach, fasting for more than 12 hours

• Those very emotionally agitated

• Those on street drugs or alcohol