Hi Allan,
Doc Stier gave me some advice a couple of years ago about my taiji knee pain that I found was very useful for all joint problems, which he explained were subject to control by the kidney/urinary bladder energy system. Because the kidney is the water element, and all joints require proper lubrication to maintain their physical alignment (Doc says it much better, but his forum is off-line at the moment so I'm paraphrasing), tonification of two acupuncture points using qi transmission can solve a lot of joint problems. My own experience has borne this out.
I was advised to send qi to Lung-8 and Kidney-7 on both sides, a total of four points, for six minutes each, every day, ideally between the hours of 3-7 PM local time (in China, no worries, in places with daylight savings you have to correct) because these hours are the ascendance of energy for the kidney/urinary bladder meridian. Other times of the day are fine, and in my experience there was little difference when I did it. Also, I found two minutes for each point was sufficient for my knee pain and other joint problems. YMMV.
The rational here is based on
Chinese Medicine Five Elemental Processes Theory (
wu xing sheng ke qi), metal produces water and Lung-8 is the water point of the Lung Meridian and Kidney-7 is the water point of the Kidney Meridian. That's as much as I can explain about it, but what I do know is that it certainly works. This is very general, but also a
very effective method to solve joint pain, but certainly if you have a torn ligament, that would need attention, although the ligament might have gotten damaged because of underlying joint misalignment that could be solved by tonifying these two points.
Let me know if you want more info. on how to locate the points or about qi transmission. I teach qigong and qi transmission and might even be able to so without face-to-face for an experienced qigong practitioner. But yeah, this remedy will depend on the qi transmission ability of the "patient", which is a pretty big variable.
Also, someone mentioned Tom Bisio's book,
A Tooth from the Tiger's Mouth, which is an excellent reference and good read.
Check it out online!
Best wishes,
Michael