Year: 2014

My sister Judy called me on my birthday during my first acupuncture training in Sri Lanka. Our father had had a heart attack and a blood clot in his left leg. She was afraid he might die….

I needed a break from my studies so I went to see my parents in Kansas. This is years before I had established my acupuncture clinic in Kansas City.

My father’s left leg was cool and white. The first day I put needles in it and it turned pink and warm.

I believe had we stopped there, he would have lived to his natural death with 2 legs. However, chemical intervention at a famous clinic here in the U.S. wiped out the arteries in his leg making, sadly, amputation inevitable. It was a sad story though it brought us closer together as father and son, as I “held his hand” through the whole process.

My patient had incontinence. She’s a petite woman in her seventies who’d given birth to 5 children. She had been suffering from incontinence for several years, even having a $30,000 machine surgically implanted in her body, which wasn’t working…

I’d tried Chinese acupuncture and moxabustion with some effect. Better, but not cured. Then I tried a Japanese acupuncture treatment of tonifying the lung.

The lungs in 5 element acupuncture theory is the mother of the kidney. In this theory, the mother organ (lung) nourishes the child (kidney). This is why some people with incontinence report that they involuntarily urinate when they sneeze.

This Japanese treatment worked, but the effect was less after two days. So I had her take daily a Chinese herbal formula to tonify her kidneys. Now she is much better and has her former and natural urge to urinate before she looses control.

Her life is better.

Twenty seven years ago, in the first week of my training (21 years before I opened my acupuncture clinic in Kansas City) a lanky, 18 year old, Sri Lankan man, named Prethap, came up to me and ask “Will you treat me today? My doctor is away for 2 days.”

“What are you being treated for?”

“Epilepsy” he replied.

“I don’t know how to treat epilepsy.”

“Ask one of the teachers” he suggested.

The teacher told me what points to use. I inserted the needles.

Prethap seemed pleased.

The next day he came to our clinic in Kalubowia hospital to be treated again. I used the same points.

Then his doctor, who’d treated him 6 times per week for 2 years to no avail, returned and I was out of the loop.

A friendship, though, had began between Prethap and myself and we would visit everyday. After a few months had passed, Prethap confided, “Paul, since you treated me, I’ve not had a seizure.”

I was stunned. He was my first patient. I didn’t know how to treat epilepsy, and I’d had to ask a teacher where to put the needles.

“What do your parents think?” I asked.

The next day Prethap answered, “My father says, ‘God is never late.'”

She fluttered into my Kansas City Acupuncture Clinic with her neck out of place. Even though she was in pain, she had lost none of her fairy-like demeanor. I knew her from the Kansas psychic fair when she paints pictures of people’s auras.

I felt her pulse and sensed that she was also frustrated. Pain will do that. Her pulse was too fast.

I inserted needles to straighten her neck and calm her frustration.

A half hour later, she prepared to leave. With her neck straight, her pulse rate normal and her spirit calmed, my fairy-like patient fluttered to her car.

She came into my Kansas City Acupuncture clinic (which is really in Prairie village) for treatment of her rhinitis, fibromyalgia related constipation, vaginal pain, insomnia and hot flashes. I treated her with Japanese acupuncture and she felt better. I prescribed a chinese herbal formula for her yin deficiency, as indicted by a tongue examination. Afterwards, I looked at her back and saw that it was bowed sideways. I resolved on the second treatment to threat her back.

When she arrived for her second treatment, I examined her back and it was, seemingly miraculously, straight. Her face and voice had more vitality. Her constipation was no more and her hot flashes and vaginal pain better.

To be continued….

Neck & lower back pain, constipation, hot flashes and breast tenderness brought her into my Kansas City acupuncture clinic, which is really in Prairie Village.

I put in a lift in her left shoe to compensate for a short leg and her pelvis leveled out. A Japanese acupuncture treatment straightened her neck out.

I gave her a Chinese herbal formula for the constipation but I wasn’t sure what to do about the breast pain.

When she returned the following week her neck pain was 90% resolved and her constipation was gone. Her back was better but still needed some work and her beast pain, miraculously, was gone!

Lori couldn’t sleep and she was depressed. In my Kansas City Acupuncture clinic (which is in Prairie Village) I diagnosed her.

I had devised a new Japanese acupuncture treatment for insomnia and tried it on her. According to her telephone report, she slept much better.

I met Albert at the Psychic Fair in Kansas City. His back hurt him so much he had to drive to the mailbox!! I did an acupuncture diagnosis and it indicated that he had a crooked back and neck.

He came to my Kansas City Acupuncture clinic, which is actually located in Prairie Village. On the first treatment, his back and neck straightened out so much that I thought he had the favor of God.

The next time I saw him at my Kansas City Acupuncture office, he told me that, with his neck straight, when he got home, all the pictures on his walls were crooked!!

She came in out of sorts with her back dawager’s hurting. I put needles in along her spine and in points to soothe her liver and her spirit!

The tension palpably flowed out of her. Her normally good sense of humor returned, she began laughing and I presume smiling though I couldn’t see her face as I was too busy working on her back.

An hour later, we had a new woman, ready to go back to her challenging life caring for a bed-ridden brother.

Jimmie was 8 years old when his father brought him to me for his daily headaches. His tongue was deviated to the left, itself a sign of an underlying condition in Chinese medicine that causes headaches.

Ater two treatments with a child’s daily dose of a herbal formula for headaches, his tongue was straight and his headaches gone. I had him come for three more treatments then we quit, as he was well.

Children heal so easily!!

James, a Kansas City patient, had a stubborn sore throat 4 years ago.

I tried all my chinese methods to cure it to no avail. In the meantime, the sore throat went away but lower energy and a swollen throat set in.

He came back to my Prairie Village office to try Japanese acupuncture. On the first treatment the the swelling of his throat went down.

Stay tuned to see how we do on his remaining symptom of low energy.

Bonnie from Kansas City came into my Prairie Village clinic complaining of frustration. This was quite a complaint coming from a school teacher with a natural Mary Poppins demeanor. The children love her, I’m sure.

It bothered her that she would occasionally be short with the children. And her frustration seed to cause headaches and insomnia just before her periods began.

I treated her for frustration, headaches, and insomnia. I also put her on, what I call, my “herbal formula for world peace.” She loves it so that she continues to take it 3 years later!!

Mark, a new Kansas City patient, came into my Prairie Village office with a “Frozen Shoulder.” He had been treated by a Chiropractor for 3 months.

I examined him and found his neck was crooked in his lower cervical vertabra. I inserted very thin (12 thousandth’s of an inch) needles in to his elbows and his neck. It was a Japanese treatment. Immediately he could elevate his arm.

When he returned a week later, his neck was straight and his shoulder much, much better.

Ludies back hurt. Her son Harvey, who sings with Gloria Gaynor, was home to bring his mother to try Japanese Acupuncture. It had been a few years since she’d been to my clinic.

I went to work first on her back, then palpated her abdomen, Japanese style. When I finished she remarked, “I feel so good and my back doesn’t hurt.” She’ll come back when her son Harvey returns from a gig in Europe.

Chinese acupuncture had failed to alleviate the pain in her knees 5 years ago.

I called her with the good news that my Japanese acupuncture was working wonders with knee pain.

She came in more crippled than usual, as she’d been a real sport and helped her brother move the day before.

I went to work on one meridian on each leg, using O’ketsu moxa and very thin Japanese needles.

As she left, she commented, “The pain is surprisingly less!!”

My patient had gotten sad at Christmas time. Memories of an early on Christmas Eve when her children were young had bubbled up to her conscious mind… Her husband, at the time, had left her that evening years before to be with another woman. In Chinese medicine, each organ has an emotion. It may not surprise you to know that the emotion of the lung is sadness.

Memories of that dreadfully sad Christmas Eve so weakened her lung Qi that she got, what ultimately, became pneumonia. She was very sick and eventually kicked the pneumonia with antibiotics. But her lungs, her voice, and energy level were weak.

I had begun practicing Japanese acupuncture and used it on her. In one session, she was so much better that she didn’t need to return for one month, and when she did, it was for other things.

I had cured his 60-ish father’s knee pain in 3 Japanese acupuncture treatments, so the son Dusty a highway patrolman–his last name isn’t but should have been Rhodes–came to me for his lower back pain which had plagued him for years. With the help of a lift in one of his shoes, I got his pelvis and hips level. Then I did acupuncture to get the pain to ease and re-establish the flow of energy. He left with no pain.

He had poor circulation in his legs. With Chinese acupuncture and Chinese herbology we had made great progress. He was so pleased, he began bringing his 92 year old mother to me. More about that in a future blog post.

Brian would be moody, it seemed. Sometimes he was so quiet I worried what was wrong.

Then I began practicing Japanese acupuncture on him. As the weeks progressed, he told me his constipation was gone. His bowels were now moving several times per day and he became more talkative in a most normal and pleasant sort of way. And his face became more clear. He simply looked better and he reported that he felt much better.

I wasn’t trying to cure constipation as I didn’t even know about it. I simply was following the protocols of rebalancing his body with Japanese acupuncture, as taught Kiki Matsumoto.

His symptoms were just falling away!

My patient came in with a copy of “Eat Right for Your Blood Type” under her arm.

She elaborated how it was helping her to feel better. I opened her copy of this book by Peter D’Adamo and looked up my blood type, A.

To my astonishment, I was already following his diet for my blood type!

I became a vegetarian for spiritual reasons, I thought. Dr. D’Adamo say type A’s are agrarian and do best as vegetarians. Not true of type O’s…they like meat!!

I read on. We type A’s like pumpkin seeds, olive oil, black beans, soy beans. Years before, I had already naturally gravitated towards these foods.

Lima beans aren’t good for us. I refused to eat them as a child. I knew! I wasn’t a character defect! He says type A’s should avoid butter. I avoided it thinking it would make me fat, and once had a stick of butter in my refrigerator for 5 years until a house guest threw it out!

I quote Dr. D’Adamo, “It will be a challenge to learn what your blood already knows!”

I recommend his book from your library or bookseller.

To be continued with Type O’s…

My new patient came in limping with a purple swollen ankle. He felt so bad he hadn’t shaved or been to work in days.

I decided to try Japanese acupuncture and palpated points on his ankle and treated him accordingly.

The pain stopped throbbing, the purple started turning back to its normal flesh color, and the swelling eased a bit.

His spirits rose and he was back at work the next day.

Richard Johnson is one of the five remaining classical guitarists trained by the Spanish virtuoso Andres Segovia Torres (1893-1987). He resides in Kansas City where he came to Paul Finney for acupuncture to regain complete control of one of his fingers. He regained control of the finger on the first acupuncture treatment and continues to come to get the finger stronger.

Segovia, quoting Wikipedia, was a classical guitarist from Linares, Spain. He is the father of modern classical guitar and has been regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Practically all professional classical guitarists today are students of Segovia, or students of his students.[2][3]

Segovia’s contribution to the modern-romantic repertoire not only included commissions but also his own transcriptions of classical or baroque works. He is remembered for his expressive performances: his wide palette of tone, and his distinctive musical personality, phrasing and style.

Segovia was sent at a very young age to live with his uncle Eduardo and his wife Maria. Eduardo arranged for Segovia’s first music lessons with a violin teacher after recognizing that Segovia had an aptitude for music. This proved to be an unhappy introduction to music for the young Segovia because of the teacher’s strict methods, and Eduardo stopped the lessons. His uncle decided to move to Granada to allow Segovia to obtain a better education; after arriving in Granada Segovia recommenced his musical studies. Segovia was aware of flamenco during his formative years as a musician but stated that he “did not have a taste” for the form and chose instead the works of Sor, Tárrega and other classical composers.[4] Tárrega agreed to give the self-taught Segovia some lessons but died before they could meet and Segovia states that his early musical education involved the “double function of professor and pupil in the same body”.[5]

Richard Johnson is a seasoned performer who has appeared as soloist with many orchestras throughout the country. He began his studies with great impresario and teacher Walter A. Fritschy. He was one of the select students to perform at the famous class of 1965, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain with Andres Segovia. He then studied for three years with Oscar Ghiglia in Paris. He has taught in both the San Francisco and Kansas City Conservatories. His own students include Ray Reussner and Charles King. Johnson, Fritschy, and Joe Cozad are the original founders of the Kansas City Guitar Society. He currently maintains a residence in Kansas City, but has strong ties to Wichita, Kansas. He has long performed in its night scene, as a soloist and as the leader of various ensembles. He has been a long standing member and supporter of the Wichita Guitar Society. He has been closely associated with Irma Wassall since early days as the Wichita Society of the Classical Guitar. Johnson now focuses his energy on composing and arranging music for the Jazz & Latin mediums. His performance with Monte Muza featured a sophisticated blend of original compositions and arrangements on steel and nylon strings. It was one of the highlights of its 2004 Jazz Matinée series. He is very pleased to be currently working with bassist Roberto Bernardinello.