Many of our patients have welcomed the massage treatment in conjunction with their Acupuncture and Osteopathic treatments. We have been using the massage specifically to treat the patient and the patient's condition so it will complement our other modalities. Some patients are also making separate massage appointments in order to manage and support their other treatments.
Tuina (which is pronounced, “tway-nah”) is more than just an oriental style of massage. It is a complete and coherent therapeutic system, one of the three pillars of Traditional Chinese Medicine (the other two being acupuncture and herbal medicine). In the health care of old China, tuina took the place that physiotherapy holds in the modern western system; however, it can also be used in the treatment of internal diseases.
Its methods include a broad range of massage and mobilisation techniques, “acupressure” (pressure and holding of acupuncture points), assisted movements and stretches. It is different from the Japanese system, shiatsu, which generally only uses pressure and stretches, and from western massage, which does not include the knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture points. Its full name is “Zhongyi Tuina” (pronounced like “joong-yee tway-nah”), meaning, “Chinese Medical Massage”.
Where western massage is based on knowledge of your musculo-skeletal system, Zhongyi Tuina combines this knowledge with the same theory of energy conduits, or “meridians” and points that acupuncture uses, as well as the same diagnostic system. The practitioner aims to untie the “knots” that bind you up, to relax the muscles, loosen the joints, invigorate the movement of body fluids and generally unblock the pathways through your body, to allow the free flow of Qi, blood and body fluids, thus restoring balance to the whole body.
Thus, Tuina can be used to treat “internal” and systemic diseases as well as muscular ones. The practitioner diagnoses the energetic imbalance, as an acupuncturist does, and treats the acupuncture points, as well as the channels of Qi themselves, especially those connected with the spine, and, sometimes, the abdomen. Tuina practitioners often prescribe corrective exercises as well.
David Freeland uses tuina as an adjunct to acupuncture, in a combined therapy that can yield better results than either method in isolation.