Chapter 1060: You Do the Needling

Qin Guoliang first provided an emergency treatment plan, letting the patient take nitroglycerin under the tongue to dilate the coronary arteries, aiming to alleviate pain and ease symptoms. After the patient took it, symptoms briefly alleviated, but soon the heart rate increased again, blood pressure continued to drop, breathing became labored, and blood oxygen levels kept decreasing.

Qin Guoliang, looking at the indexes on the ECG monitor, was also somewhat nervous; the patient showed symptoms of heart failure so quickly.

Qin Guoliang provided a series of treatment plans.

Change the patient’s position, helping the patient maintain a sitting position. Such a posture can help reduce the volume of blood returning to the heart, thereby alleviating the heart’s burden.

Immediately administer high-flow oxygen to avoid the patient experiencing hypoxia symptoms.

Inject sedatives to reduce the heart’s burden.

Instruct the nurse to prepare cardiac stimulants, mainly fast-acting drugs like digoxin to increase myocardial contractility, treat heart failure, use diuretics to reduce the heart’s load, and ease the heart’s burden. Use vasodilators to further reduce the volume of blood returning to the heart, alleviating its load.

Use aminophylline to relieve airway spasms, improve ventilation quality, enhance cardiopulmonary exchange, increase oxygen supply, and alleviate acute heart failure symptoms.

Quickly establish an intravenous channel.

It should be said that Qin Guoliang’s treatment plan was timely, but it had little effect on the patient. Instead of improving, all physiological indexes continued to decline, and soon cardiac arrest symptoms appeared.

All medical staff were prepared for the worst.

While performing CPR, Qin Guoliang shouted for the nurse to prepare the defibrillator.

Upon hearing about the situation, Xu Chunliang also rushed over. After quickly understanding the patient’s condition, he said to Li Jia Kuan, “Uncle Li, do you remember the situation when we first met?”

Li Jia Kuan nodded. How could he forget that during the journey to Nanjiang on the train, due to the Equatorial Capital’s Luan Yuchuan falling ill, they urgently sought the help of healthcare professionals. He, Xu Donglai, and Xu Chunliang intervened to save him, with Xu Chunliang playing a critical role.

At that time, Luan Yuchuan’s condition was much more severe than this patient’s. Luan Yuchuan had stopped breathing, his lips were blackened, his fingernails cyanotic, pupils dilated and unresponsive to light, and was nearing death when Xu Chunliang pulled him back from the brink using acupuncture.

Although Li Jia Kuan had not formally apprenticed under Elder Xu Changshan, Elder Xu had already treated him and Liu Shanmin as his disciples, unreservedly teaching them whenever they asked for guidance.

Li Jia Kuan had privately consulted Xu Chunliang about Luan Yuchuan’s case, and Xu Chunliang openly shared the detailed treatment plan with him.

Xu Chunliang said, “You do it.” He took out his needle pouch and handed it to Li Jia Kuan.

Li Jia Kuan hesitated for a moment, but upon seeing the trust in Xu Chunliang’s eyes, he gained confidence. In Chinese medicine, sometimes there’s a mystical component, with breakthroughs occurring in the blink of an eye. The same illness and acupuncture technique might work for someone else because of a key factor: confidence.

In fact, Li Jia Kuan was there when the patient fell ill. He hesitated repeatedly but didn’t dare to take action himself, telling Tang Mingmei to get an expert. He didn’t directly suggest getting Xu Chunliang, as he had promised Xu Chunliang to keep the rescue of Luan Yuchuan confidential.

Li Jia Kuan silently recalled the scene when Xu Chunliang rescued Luan Yuchuan, closed his eyes, nodded firmly, and finally made up his mind. This was the best opportunity to combine theory with practice and a test of his ability.

He lifted the patient’s right foot and directly aimed for the Yongquan acupoint on the sole with a fine needle. The Yongquan acupoint, also known as Earth Surge, is part of the Foot Shaoyin Kidney Meridian, where kidney meridian water flows out of the body surface.

The purpose of needling the Yongquan acupoint is to create strong pain, awakening the patient from a severe coma.

After the train emergency rescue, Li Jia Kuan had gone over Xu Chunliang’s acupuncture technique countless times in his mind and understood it thoroughly.

Following Xu Chunliang’s original method, he continued needling after breaking the skin to stimulate the initial needle sensation. Piercing through the plantar aponeurosis and the short flexor through the interosseous space, he successively penetrated the intermuscular fascia and dorsal foot skin, connecting with the Neiting acupoint of the Foot Yangming Stomach Meridian, the shiny needle tip piercing through the dorsal skin and the entire sole.

This needling process requires precise acupoint identification, ensuring to avoid the vessels and nerves of the foot, allowing the fine needle to penetrate the sole.

Watching Li Jia Kuan’s swift and sharp needling technique, Xu Chunliang’s lips curled into a gratified smile. Li Jia Kuan’s acupuncture skills were not low, but due to his specialization, he rarely treated diseases outside of colorectal issues.

After Li Jia Kuan consecutively inserted needles into the Yongquan acupoints on both feet of the patient, he selected the Neiguan acupoint, also known as the Yinwei acupoint, which belongs to the Hand Jueyin Heart Sack Meridian.

He quickly pierced the skin with a long needle through the layer of fat, and as it broke through the fascia between the muscles, the long needle encountered a significant resistance. Penetrating the fascia between the muscles elicited the first needling sensation, continuing through the superficial flexor muscles, penetrating between the superficial and deep flexor muscles, the needle tip pierced the median nerve, eliciting the second needling sensation.

Li Jia Kuan did not possess Xu Chunliang’s skill of inserting needles with both hands simultaneously, so he proceeded consecutively. Even so, his technique garnered admiration from the crowd.

Liu Shanmin watched intently from the side, never expecting Li Jia Kuan’s progress in acupuncture to be so rapid. He wondered if Mr. Xu favored him extraordinarily, giving him special instruction. Little did he know that Li Jia Kuan had learned the true art from Xu Chunliang.

Li Jia Kuan gradually relaxed, his hands controlling the fine needle to twist and manipulate it in the Neiguan acupoint of the patient.

The patient’s limbs began to move, and the constantly declining blood pressure stopped falling and began to rise slowly.

Qin Guoliang was dumbfounded; he couldn’t understand why after utilizing so many emergency measures the patient’s condition didn’t improve, the blood pressure didn’t rise, but after a few needles from Li Jia Kuan, the patient began to show signs of stabilization.

Liu Shanmin saw the profound method, and the fundamental reason Li Jia Kuan’s acupuncture worked was the Neiguan acupoint. The superficial meridian water of the Heart Sack Meridian enters the body through the Neiguan, and once it reaches the ground section of the Neiguan, it enters the internal meridian of the Heart Sack Meridian. However, the qi derived from the meridian water’s vaporization inside the Heart Sack Meridian cannot escape through the ground section of the Neiguan, acting like a one-way valve.

Li Jia Kuan used the lifting and thrusting method to repeatedly acupuncture the Neiguan, helping the patient to open and close this valve, releasing the vaporized qi, thus improving circulation.

The treatment had reached its most crucial moment. Li Jia Kuan needed to use the fine needle to bridge and connect the Yinwei Meridian and the Yangwei Meridian.

Three minutes after the Neiguan puncture, he continued to insert the needle, the tip breaking through the extensor digitorum communis, into the Outer Gate Acupoint. At this moment, Li Jia Kuan was completely immersed in his own world, forgetting the onlookers, forgetting where he was, leaving only himself and the patient in the world. He wanted to use this fine needle to build a bridge to life for the patient.

The Outer Gate Acupoint belongs to the Lesser Yang Triple Burner Meridian, connected to the Yangwei Meridian and is one of the eight converging points. Under normal conditions, the meridians flow and the yin-yang alternate. The patient suffered cardiac arrest, obstructing the heart meridian, lacking the heart’s driving force, stagnating the yin-yang cycle, which prevented conversion, causing the illness to occur.

This critical needle reloaded a bridge between the Yinwei and Yangwei Meridians, allowing yin to sink and yang to rise, restoring the yin-yang cycle dynamics in the meridians, merging yin and yang, the yang-born yin sinking, and the long-stagnant meridians began to flow again.

During a conversation between Li Jia Kuan and Xu Chunliang, Xu Chunliang told him, when cardiac arrest occurs, the meridians are like a static canal, and the heart is akin to the waterwheel in the canal. To restart the waterwheel, the canal water must first flow, only the flowing water can drive the waterwheel to turn again.

The automatic external defibrillator was yet to be used, yet under Li Jia Kuan’s acupuncture, the patient already regained an autonomous heartbeat.

A strand of long hair fell from the side of Li Jia Kuan’s temple, and his bald forehead was covered in sweat, looking quite comical, but no one laughed. In their eyes, a sacred halo enveloped Li Jia Kuan. Angels may not look as everyone imagines, they might be bald.

Li Jia Kuan smoothly completed the rescue, seeing the gradually recovering physiological indicators, he was like a fool, devastated, as he came before Xu Chunliang: “Chunliang, I succeeded.”

Xu Chunliang nodded his head.

Li Jia Kuan excitedly grabbed Xu Chunliang’s hand: “I succeeded!”

Xu Chunliang said: “You succeeded, you saved this patient.”

Qin Guoliang furrowed his brows, re-examining the patient with a stethoscope, his voice deep: “The condition is not so simple, further examination is necessary to determine the condition. I suggest transporting the patient to Juzhou City for a comprehensive checkup as soon as possible.” After speaking, he turned to Li Jia Kuan: “Director Li, do you have any opinions?”

During the time when Li Jia Kuan was rescuing the patient, Xu Chunliang had already taken the patient’s pulse and reviewed the patient’s medical records: palpitations, shortness of breath, hemoptysis, worsening on exertion. Each meal aggravated the heart, creating anxiety at every mealtime. To prevent heart palpitations, eating stopped and started, each meal often delayed two or three hours.

Xu Chunliang quietly handed his written opinion to Li Jia Kuan on the medical record.

Li Jia Kuan glanced at it and read: “Seeing the symptoms overall, there is a deficiency in both yin and yang of the heart, with a predominance of yang deficiency. The long-standing illness has damaged the mid qi of the spleen and stomach, the son depletes the mother’s qi, thus exacerbating palpitations upon eating. Gradually the five organs lose nourishment, the innate kidney qi is exhausted, thus lumbar pain as if breaking, kidneys fail to grasp qi resulting in asthma, true yang loses its hold leading to sweat, extremities, and abnormal pulses. Deficiency must be accompanied by stasis, obstructing the heart meridian, causing chest congestion and stabbing pain, warming the kidneys to restore yang, promoting circulation and dispersing stasis, nourishing fluids to rescue the heart.”

Qin Guoliang secretly smirked, he believed that Li Jia Kuan’s successful rescue contained an element of luck, the correct treatment was to quickly transport the patient to a municipal general hospital, ideally perform a coronary angiography, identify narrow spots, and arrange for interventional treatment.

He did not completely deny the role of traditional Chinese medicine, but TCM treatment for such patients may not eliminate the root cause, and according to his earlier auscultation, this patient should have combined rheumatic heart disease and mitral valve organic lesions, most hospitals would probably not dare conduct interventional treatment for her.