Male patient, early 40s, works as a carpenter. His job is mostly installing wood floor. So he is always bending over or on his four limbs. Lower back pain has been bothering him on and off for a year. He came with a pain level 8 out of 10 on his L3 to L5 and radiating horizontally along his waist line, especially when he bent forward. He has tried massage from RMTs. That has helped, but the pain would always come back. He thought he'd try acupuncture for a change.
Based on Dr. Richard Tan's Balance method, I put 3 needles on his hand: Ling Gu, Yao Tong Xue, and Si4. He was able to bend forward immediately with less pain but still could feel the pain radiating horizontally. So I added 2 needles on the back of his feet, Gb41, both sides. That radiating pain was gone. What's left was the lumbar pain, but now 4 out of 10 pain scale. Lastly, I palpated his head around Du22 to Du 24 area along the Du meridian and found 3 tender points to insert the needles. His pain was reduced to 1 out of 10. This process took less than 5 mins. He was amazed with how quickly acupuncture worked. I retained the needles for 30 mins and told him to rest, but he decided to look at his cellphone instead.
After I took out the needles, his pain came back. Acupuncture isn't a miracle, although there are miracle cases from time to time. He understood that and agreed to come back for more treatments. The following week when he came back, I asked him if the pain was till that bad. He said "You know what? It's not as bad as before."
Acupuncture uses your own body's energy to heal itself. If your energy is low, the therapeutic effect might be shorter than expected. But don't get discouraged, it still works.