Featured Case Notes

Female, 42. Recurrent headaches for 6 years, worsening over the past 2 years. Prior care: neurology and pain clinics.

Attack frequency rose from once or twice a month to six to eight times, and painkillers were needed more than twelve days a month. The hard part of this case is not pain relief itself, but steadying the attack rhythm and easing the medication dependence together.

Female, 42. Symptoms for 1 year. Sedentary office work, late bedtimes.

It took over an hour to fall asleep, with two or three night wakings and daytime palpitations and trembling hands. The order of care: calm the spirit first, then regulate the organs, and only then discuss reducing medication — whether to reduce is a decision that belongs to the prescribing physician.

Male, 46. Pain for 10 years. Prolonged sitting plus intermittent heavy lifting.

The MRI showed only mild degeneration, yet the pain never stopped for ten years. Two things are most feared in this kind of back pain: passive treatment without exercise, and cutting back all activity out of fear of the pain.

Male, 30. Symptoms for 5 years, worse at the spring and autumn season changes. Mild eczema.

Dust mite allergy at three plus signs; antihistamines worked but the problem returned every year. For this kind of constitutional problem, outcomes must be judged by 'next season' rather than 'this week' — which is exactly how seasonal moxibustion is meant to be used.

Female, 58. Trigeminal neuralgia for 8 months, right V2/V3 branches.

Lightning-like severe pain, dozens of attacks a day, triggered by brushing teeth or talking. This condition has the strictest compliance boundaries of all: first exclude organic causes, then discuss acupuncture.

Male, 45. Onset 3 days ago, left side, with retroauricular pain and reduced taste.

One disease name, three phases: in the acute phase the watchwords are light, early, steady; in recovery, tonify, unblock, train; in the sequelae stage, the realistic limits of recovery must be stated honestly. Staging is the core of a Bell's palsy case.

Female, 48. Symptoms for 3 years, roughly 2–3 attacks per month.

Rotational vertigo with tinnitus and ear fullness, hearing fluctuating. This condition above all calls for holding the formula: once the pattern is right, do not keep switching prescriptions — the course is counted in months.

Male, 43. Desk work, symptoms for 2 years.

C5/6 and C6/7 disc protrusion compressing the nerve root, right arm numb for three months. The approach is release, align, train — relying on passive treatment alone, the odds of coming back in three months are high.

Female, 62. Symptoms for 5 years, both knees (right worse), overweight.

K-L grade III; orthopedics recommended replacement, which she is not ready for. The role of Chinese medicine is to make the years that can still be managed conservatively go better — pain and function are ours; structural change is not within what we promise.

Female, 55. Symptoms for 5 months, right shoulder, with diabetes (key history).

Woken by night pain three or four times a week, moving from the painful phase into the stiffening phase. Frozen shoulder is a disease of time and of training — if the staging is not made clear, patients tend to abandon the exercises during the stiff phase.

Female, 48. Diagnosed 6 years ago, symmetric involvement of both wrists, metacarpophalangeal, and proximal interphalangeal joints.

Low disease activity on methotrexate, DAS28 2.9. The value here is making the division of labor explicit: immune treatment belongs to the specialist; symptom and function care belongs to us.

Female, 40. Symptoms for 4 years, diagnosed by rheumatology.

Widespread pain, fatigue, insomnia, and mood swings woven together. The way in is not 'pain relief' but managing three things at once: sleep, graded exercise, and mood.