Sam Belyea aka The Foot Whisperer recently posted a great video titled Pulse Assessment in Reflexology Στα ελληνικά εδώ.
I personally found it very good, laid out well, informative and this information can be applied immediately in our everyday practise if we wish too. Of course as soon as this Covid 19 pandemic and its concequences on our everyday life go away.
Looking at the video I could not but help observe that there is a coincidence here with Nerve Reflexology worth mentioning having to do with some reflexes.
Sam in the beginning of the video states
"The pulse isn't necessarily similar anatomicaly to the feet, hand, ear and face but we can still use the pulse and the different layers of the pulse to asses somebody's physical constitution and their mental emotional state."
Well I agree we can use it the way he describes if we wish, and in this case of the pulse at hand, it is definetely similar in representation to a sympathetic subdivision of the autonomic nervous system that is responsible for blood supply to organs and myoskeletal that Sam suggests.
And was it not one of Eunice Ingham's favourite sayings "circulation is life, stagnation is death".
Getting to the coincidence, where the 3 pulses are placed as reflexes, is where in Nerve Reflexology we find Nerve Reflex points for important parts of the sympathetic subdivision of the autonomic nervous system, but on the PLANTAR aspect of the foot!
As an immediate sidenote, though Sam is on the dorsal of the foot and Nerve reflexology places the reflexes I am discussing on the plantar, take notice that the dorsal plantar artery communicates with the plantar blood supply of the foot through the deep plantar artery, so there is a connection dorsal-plantar.
The parts of the sympathetic system involved are:
- two celiac ganglia one left and one right
- the celiac plexus also known as the solar plexus
- the superior mesenteric ganglion.
- the superior mesenteric plexus
- the inferior mesenteric ganglion
In Nerve reflexology these structures would be evaluated and worked on appropriately whenever inflammation or non efficient circulation is an issue. There are some differences between how Sam breaks down using the three pulses and how its done in Nerve Reflexology but that is getting into detail, not for here.
Sam has done a great job outlining information on the dorsal pedal artery and how to place our fingers in order to palpate, so you can place your fingers just above or distal to the navicular bone on top of the foot. And of course lots of information on how to evaluate the "three pulses" and utilize this information in your practise. So as you can see in the second picture whatever you feel in the proximal pulse "P" has to do with the lower body (organs and myoskeletal) and so on for the other two pulses.Liver 3 point in TCM is indicated for
- Headache, vertigo, redness, swelling and pain of the eye, wry face
- Depression, pain in the hypochondrium, abdominal distention, hiccup
- Weakness, numbness and pain of the lower extremities, difficulty in walking
- Irregular menstruation, metrorrhagia and metrostaxis, hernia, enuresis
- Epilepsy, infantile convulsion
It is the Yuan-Source point of the Liver Meridian and thus of great significance in treating diseases of the internal organs.
In Orthopedic Reflexology the arteries are part of our training, to those who have attended one of our courses or heard us presenting, will remember the inferior extensor retinaculum and how if this is restricted it might in turn affect the dorsal pedal artery which is the extension of the anterior tibial artery. Don't forget the baroreceptor reflex too.
One important person in the reflexology world to use the pulse was Paul Nogier who gave us the reflex map of the ear with the inverted embryo.
The so-called Nogier reflex or reflex auriculo-cardiac abbreviated RAC or vascular autonomic signal VAS. This phenomenon was first described by Paul Nogier in the 1970s.
Based on the assumption that most cells of the organism respond to stimuli of the autonomic nervous system, Nogier sought a method that allowed the body’s response to acupuncture-induced measures to be presented. He discovered that by mechanical pressure on certain points on the auricle in his opinion, a cardiovascular reaction took place.
By developing a “suitable” pressure, it seems to be
possible for experienced users to feel a change in the patient’s pulse after triggering stimulation on the ear (and later on the body), which felt as if the pulse beating had increased slightly for one to three beats.
I wondered if maybe they were feeling the pulse in a similar fashion as Dr. Paul Nogier.
This was documented in the revisited edition 2014 of Christine Issel's famous book Reflexology Art, Science & History.
But we are not over yet, fate would have it that Dorthe Krogsgaard & Peter Lund from Touchpoint.dk sent out greetings to all of us but also two tips for this challenging period. The second tip "Chronobiology: Strengthen the Vagus nerve" has to do with pulsing(!!!!). Make sure to read the first tip also.
This is how they describe it themsleves.
possible for experienced users to feel a change in the patient’s pulse after triggering stimulation on the ear (and later on the body), which felt as if the pulse beating had increased slightly for one to three beats.
This was documented in the revisited edition 2014 of Christine Issel's famous book Reflexology Art, Science & History.
But we are not over yet, fate would have it that Dorthe Krogsgaard & Peter Lund from Touchpoint.dk sent out greetings to all of us but also two tips for this challenging period. The second tip "Chronobiology: Strengthen the Vagus nerve" has to do with pulsing(!!!!). Make sure to read the first tip also.
This is how they describe it themsleves.
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