Small Intestine Luo-Connecting Channel

This page is a bit abstruse if you’re a beginner. It’s not that the words are any, or at least, much, more difficult than on other pages, but this is about a subject usually taught some way into acupuncture courses. 

So some of the concepts need your familiarity with other ideas in Chinese medicine.

Actually, I did this page, and other luo-connecting channel pages, for a few insistent patients, and for me. 

It means I can look up both the channel and its symptoms  on my smartphone in case I forget them. 

If it helps others, great.

For more information about this type of acupuncture channel, click on luo-connecting channels.

• This luo pathway starts at Small Intestine 7, Zhizheng … 
• … then joins up with its partner channel, that of the Heart. 
• It then extends up the arm to the shoulder at Large Intestine 15, Jianyu.

• Fullness: loosening of the joints, loss of tone of the sinews in the elbow; stiff elbow; atrophy of the muscles of the arm
• Emptiness: tiny swellings, some looking like small scabs, often itchy; long, pedunculated warts
• Qi Stagnation: abdominal distension and noises (borborygmi)
• Blood Stasis: pain in the abdomen, often severe, possibly with blood in the stools

Comment on Small Intestine Luo connecting channel

The symptoms listed above come down from antiquity. They are succinct. That doesn’t mean they are the only possible symptoms of the syndromes mentioned, nor that the syndromes listed are the only ones possible.

For example, one could have Heat in the Small Intestine Luo, which might appear as sore, inflamed, wrist or elbow joints, especially along the pathways of the Heart or Small Intestine channel.

Or it might appear as described for Qi stagnation but with signs of Heat, such as loose, offensive stools and a rash on the abdomen or down the arm.

If small veins then appeared abnormally under the skin (along the pathway, for instance) this would be a sign of Heat or inflammation. The correct traditional treatment for this would be to prick them to prevent the pathogenic factor from lodging deeper and indeed, to allow it to escape.

Of course, other Luos might be affected too, and using the Small Intestine Luo to treat it might be only part of a treatment.