According to conventional medicine, macular degeneration is a progressive, incurable, degenerative disease. As good as modern medicine can be for some opthamological problems, it does not have much to offer those with macular degeneration other than say "take your vitamins and await the inevitable."

While macular degeneration is indeed progressive, it's progress can be slowed and in many people some amount of function restored.

Not only macular degeneration, but Stargardt's disease, retinitis pigmentosa and other eyes conditions can improve through the use of acupuncture using particular points on the palms and soles.

Our guest in this show is fired up about helping prevent people from going blind. Listen in as we discuss how acupuncture and Chinese medicine can help to make a big difference in the quality of life for people with degenerative opthamological conditions.

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

The medicine of east Asia is based on a science that does not hold

itself separate from the phenomenon that it seeks to understand our

medicine did not grow at a Petri dish experimentation or a double blind studies.

It arose from observing nature and our part in it.

East Asian medicine evolves not from the examination of dead structures, but

rather from living systems with their complex mutually entangled interactions.

Welcome to chia logic.

I'm Michael Maxx, the host of this podcast that goes in depth on issues, pertinent

to practitioners and students of east Asian medicine, dialogue and discussion

have always been elemental to Chinese and other east Asian medicines listened

into these conversations with experienced practitioners that go deep into how this

ancient medicine is alive and unfair.

Hotter and clinic.

Yeah.

Everybody welcome to chief qiological.

I am really excited today to be talking with Matt Matson.

Bots is an acupuncturist in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

He was the guest on everyday acupuncture episode 56 clarifying vision.

We were talking about using acupuncture and Chinese medicine to

treat degenerative eye diseases in particular, in impossible disease to re.

Uh, immaculate degeneration today, we are going to go into some of

these Microsystems where they came from, where these points are.

And more importantly, how you use Chinese medicine in a holistic.

To treat these kinds of issues.

Bots, welcome to qiological.

Thanks again.

Yeah.

Great to see you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That'd be here.

Face-to-face in person.

We're face-to-face in person.

In fact, we're here at the international headquarters of a pin doctor, right?

Yeah.

System is something that came to my attention.

I can't remember when, but I remember that it was kind of Strout ID and secrecy.

There was kind of a, an underground buzz about it.

It's like, oh, there's this guy somewhere.

And there's these special points.

And supposedly people reversing macular degeneration.

You kind of hear about this stuff, but looking into it was really difficult.

And getting information and even trying to get any kind of training was

basically impossible a few years ago.

Can you give us a little background on this system and

how you found out about it?

It was kind of a, a obscure.

Way of learning about it.

We had a family friend who had developed macular degeneration up to that point.

I had no idea what that even was.

So this was back in probably 1998, something like that.

I was still a, I was in my sophomore year of acupuncturist.

And somebody passed an article along to my dad.

It was in some kind of obscure magazine called country living,

I think, but there's an article in there about it said something

like, can this man save your site?

And so it was about an acupuncturist from Denmark named pair audit, and he, uh, had

learned this protocol from a colleague named Freddie doll, grin pear then came

over to originally in Texas, I believe.

And then subsequently up to Arkansas.

And was, uh, treating people with these degenerative eye

diseases with acupuncture.

So being a student, I had to write a thesis paper and I called down to the

clinic and I thought, wow, this would be a great topic, or I'd love to even learn

it so I could help our family friend.

So I called down there and, you know, I just spoke to him very briefly

and he said, you know, Some time or we'll have classes in the future.

So I'm pretty, pretty determined individual, but I literally call

back probably twice a year for five years and, you know, kept

getting kind of the shrug off.

And then for five years, you're like trying to get into the Zen monastery.

You keep knocking at the door mountain to the, on the top, but yeah, I kept kind of

getting the brush off and then just out of the blue, it was in, uh, spring of 2003.

I get this phone call from pear.

And he said his exact words.

I remember he said, well, you're the next one who's been bugging me the most.

So you can come down and learn it.

So I made my reservations and headed down to Arkansas and I found

out previously, there were just a group of acupunctures that went

down about two weeks before I did.

Um, and then I went down, as I said, two weeks later.

And then pears eventual replacement was also, we trained in together.

So at some point he just decided to start sharing it.

And, and there were a few people that he admitted in, so to speak.

Yeah.

And it turned out, you know what?

So I'd waited so long to learn this.

And then all of a sudden I'm down there sitting across the desk from him.

And it was a little shell shock because I'm all of a sudden handed all these,

this packet of papers, which I showed you.

So there was this contract.

He wanted 25% of my income and definitely there was a confidentiality

clause and, uh, you know, so it was a little bit like all of a sudden

what, you know, what do I do?

I wasn't prepared for that.

This was supposed to be part of the, uh, the, you know, the

engagement that was going to happen.

I thought he was trying to franchise himself basically.

Yeah, it was trying to schedule us all out as, as franchisee.

So I was going to be the Northern person, and then he had people

on the other corners of the.

So, uh, what do you do became this a little surprised by

waited five years as I said.

And so I ended up signing the contract and I don't know that everybody did.

So, you know, it was, it was very frustrating subsequently after doing

the training, um, and went home and had referrals from the clinic,

which was supposed to be part of the deal for about a month or two.

And then it was just stopped.

And so then, you know, as I'm just like, what was I expected to keep giving 25%

of my income for business I generated.

So, uh, you know, we commiserated a little bit with some of the other acupuncturists.

We kind of had a, a mutiny on the back.

I had a lawyer look at the contract too.

And he said, it just wasn't valid and wouldn't hold up in Minnesota courts.

And so it was frustrating to, to find out that the protocol wasn't

entirely his, it was developed by Freddie doll grin and where Freddy,

who we were talking earlier, were Freddy got it, or how he developed it?

I do not know what was Paris doing before he did acupuncture.

I had heard that he was a peat Moss farmer.

Oh, so perfect segue into acupuncture.

I guess I was a BA in art history, so I used to do high-tech.

So, I mean, we all have our own unique way into no doubt.

Yeah.

So, so you learned it from him, you were, you went to Arkansas.

I always say I spent, um, you know, uh, a week, a year there or one week,

uh, it was like the longest week of my life and, you know, spend time with

me showing me the acupuncture points, but it wasn't really, you know, I felt

like I could have been there maybe five hours or something instead of five days.

Uh, just for the, what I learned.

I mean, it was quite simple and as quite a rote protocol, what I learned,

so we only learned one version of the protocol, I guess there were several.

And how that came about was later on, you know, there, there was a document

that was found where pear had tried to patent the micro acupuncture protocols.

And in that document have found several different versions.

Uh, I think three or four versions of what he had shown me initially.

So that was quite a surprise to learn that.

And this document is in the public domain.

Now it is in the public domain.

You can just find it on Google it's.

I have it linked on my website and, um, and I cause a bit of a kerfuffle,

I guess that's the word with?

There was, uh, a woman named Ingrid and she has, um, retinitis pigmentosa, which

is another degenerative eye disease, congenital one and her friend, Jean.

And they have a great website called determined to see.com.

They've been asking for these points for years, just to help more people obviously.

And he's been helped by this protocol has been sacrificed.

Yep.

Yep.

And so in this article that they did about me, uh, we included those points

and so yeah, some acupuncturists and pair came out of the woodwork at me a bit.

What's been so frustrating about learning this protocol

and having it in those, those confidentiality clauses we're seeing.

Constraining and unfair in that I would have people come and see me from say

out-state or, you know, from farther away.

And then they do their initial set of protocols, say they get benefit.

And then, then what, like I wasn't supposed to, you know,

they go home and what go blind.

If I don't share this protocol, ultimately it's just unethical.

It's unprofessional to have something that could literally help probably

20 million people around the world with these degenerative eye diseases.

And you're going to hold that information.

It's just it's obscene and you know, so I fully admit I was

part of that kind of problem.

Like I, you know, I have this information, but ultimately, you know,

some people I did share, even though I wasn't supposed to, I told their

acupuncturist how to do it, but again, it became this ethical kind of thing.

Like if I don't share this with them, they go home and work.

They go blind, sadly.

I mean, I guess fast forwarding the story.

Unfortunately impair passed away from liver cancer in June.

I was completely gobsmacked by that.

I didn't know he was sick at all because we haven't really been in communication.

What's so sad about, well, it's sad that he's has passed away, but it's also

sad that this amazing body of knowledge that he had is now just pretty much.

And he trained.

I mean, I think there were a few more subsequent to this initial

group of us that went down.

So, but maybe, I don't know, 20, or maybe taught by him and, uh, of that maybe

10 of us are still practicing, but I think of what, how little I even learned

when I went down there for five days.

And so what other information that he had with, you know, all that experience.

So it's so sad that it's gone.

So.

And we're going to get into this a little bit later.

I know you do classes.

I know that you're very keen on making sure that people learn how to do

this so they can help other people.

And you're very keen on people retaining their eyesight if at all possible, so

they can live a better life and we'll get into your classes and all that later.

So these, this micro system that Perez got from Freddy, and we don't know

where Freddy got it from it's it's, it's sort of shrouded in some kind of.

It would be interesting to find out at some point, if

we could track that guy down.

I mean, maybe I can get him on this.

So these points, these, the supposedly magical points.

Can you tell us a bit about them?

Sure.

So the, the, the system he created, he calls it micro acupuncture.

And so the idea with it is there's more energy at the heads of the metacarpal

bones, the long bones in the hands, and also the metatarsal bones in the feet.

So long bones enhancing.

And so there's a dissonant approximate point at the, uh, the

heads of those bones and each one.

And it's divided up into different meridians, the equivalent of where

they would line up on the hand or feet.

Okay.

So you got like the liver on the foot triple burner up on the Palm.

Right?

Right.

And so the idea is that you needle by the heads of those bones, Through the system.

The concept is there's more, as I learned more energy at the heads of those bones.

So kind of a random selection of points for some of the protocols.

Or the protocol I learned.

I mean, it wasn't just standard like liver and kidney.

I mean, there's a hard point and I think gallbladder, and so, you

know why he chose those points.

My, I never learned and I'm not sure.

And then looking at the PDF document, that's on the website and you can

find on the us patent and trade site.

There's I think three different versions of that, that I didn't

learn when I was in Arkansas.

So.

But basically the idea is it's a micro system using the

hands and feet with needling.

And so the particular protocol I learned uses five points on each

foot and then three in each hand.

And how often do you do these?

So the initial protocol that I learned back in 2003 from him, we

were doing three treatments a day.

Each treatment at the time was a half hour with about an hour gap between somewhere

along the line, maybe around 2000.

Five or six.

I just felt like clients were getting very tired.

It became a very long day just to get seated and get comfortable.

And then all of a sudden you pull the pins out.

And so I switched it to doing two sessions a day for about a half hour needle

retention with about an hour between.

And, uh, I found that that seemed to work quite well.

It's interesting.

Now, finding out from clients who had seen pair more recent.

He was doing five treatments a day, but I think 20 minute needle retention.

And then, uh, I'm not sure of the time gap between.

Wow.

That's a lot of treatment.

A lot to me, it seems some people are more sensitive to acupuncture and it could be.

Where I'm down by the end of the day, but we don't have him here

to talk about those results.

So, yeah.

So very interesting how, you know, the difference in how

the protocol changed over time.

So in your experience, and you've been doing this, how long now?

Since 2003, since 2003.

So you have a, not small amount of experience with this, and it's this

point you're finding two treatments a day, at least initially is.

And so how would you phrase, um, spaces.

I mean, evidently when Perez was doing, people would like

go for a week or something.

What if somebody comes to you and they've got macular

degeneration, they want some help.

What, what would your treatment scheme look like?

Typically do intakes on Monday mornings, uh, for some day coming,

if they're going to stay for a week.

And then I do, I have a community style treatment room and also a single treatment

room, but, uh, so I have five chairs and so it's pretty much how I treat.

So my clinic's very small.

I, I don't really want a, um, I've worked in really busy.

Intensive community acupuncture settings before.

And I find as a practitioners can be quite exhausting in the set of by habit.

It works very well.

Uh, when it's busy, I mean, it's, it's busy and I, you know, but it's comfortable

enough with the five chairs for me and for everyone else too, it doesn't feel like a,

you know, some sort of warehouse factory process, um, to get back to your question.

So I do the intakes on Monday morning, so I do a pretty thorough

review of the health system.

There's also some, um, eye tests that I do, including a, just a standard Snelling

eye chart, a near acuity chart, and then something called contrast sensitivity,

where we're seeing how much degree of light that the eye needs to process

information, uh, since called Amsler grid.

And I do some color field testing and, uh, I used to have a visual field scanner, but

I'm looking at getting a, um, a retinal.

It's a retinal camera.

So the retinal camera the, well, the difference is the visual field scanner

has a little bit more subjectivity.

So the client is testing one eye at a time, and there's a light that

flashes all around the visual field.

And when they see one of those lights, they click a button.

So there's a degree of, of subjectivity and, and it's not quite a perfect test of.

Whereas the retinal camera and OCT is a, it's a pretty much.

Objective tests where they're just looking at it and there's

a light that scans the retina.

It's fascinating.

It looks just like a, uh, if you can picture a sedimentary layer on the

bottom of a river, for example, or a set of layers of rock, where you can

see that these layers of the retina.

Really less than a millimeter thick, but you can see it on this printout that's,

you know, and be like an inch tall.

So you can really see what's happening in that area where the macula is.

And then the retinal camera is doesn't require the bright strobe lights,

but you can get a visual image of the retina suit, like a photographic image.

So I think that would be a much better.

Test to really assess the, uh, the progress of the acupuncture treatment.

Yeah.

So it sounds like right now, the tests that you just mentioned, you

do the, so that you have a way.

Uh, of giving yourself and the patient some way of judging

how the treatment's going.

How often do you retest?

So usually we test after 10 treatments and then after 20, and I

guess I didn't finish the thought.

So people, uh, when they come in, we'll do the intake on Monday morning.

I'll do the two sessions of acupuncture on in the afternoon.

And then throughout the rest of the week, I do the acupuncture

sessions in the morning.

And then I'll retest again, Friday afternoon.

So initially you bring them in for a week, two treatments a day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And instead of doing the testing, you want to do the testing initially, so you have

a baseline of how their vision is, and I require them to see their ophthalmologist

and have a thorough exam, ideally, within.

Before seeing me.

So I'm pretty fresh and recent of how their baseline, because it's

important for the ophthalmologist to have those baselines as well.

So when they come back and do their testing, that they can see, oh, wow.

Th these changes.

But they always like to test on their own equipment too, so understandably well,

and they've got that fancy retina camera, so you could just have them do that.

Right.

And do people that have macular degeneration usually come in with

one of those, is that a standard.

Test that ophthalmologist would do usually either the visual field,

which isn't as common, but if more often than not, they use the OCT.

It stands for optical coherence, tomography.

And that's the test that looks like the sedimentary layers, but that will

allow our ophthalmologists to assess whether or not there's bleeding or any

other sort of abnormality in the retina.

So, I mean, there's these points and I suspect people listening to this

right now might be gaining a side.

Ooh.

You know, magic point.

I suspect that they're helpful, but points by themselves usually

don't make for a treatment.

I mean, especially for something as systemic, uh, as a, as a chronic

degenerative degenerative illness, usually you need something more than that.

Acupuncture treatment.

So what else do you do to help your patients?

So I'm doing the best that I can, as far as trying to incorporate all

five branches of Chinese medicine.

So obviously the acupuncture, but then.

Also incorporate, uh, various forms of bodywork.

So encouraging them to actually get some sort of body work.

Also showing them acupressure points that they can do around the eyes I have.

Um, there it's quite silly, but there, uh, may have seen in their dryer balls.

So they're hard plastic balls with little nubs on them and size of a record.

But I send them home with those and have them roll them in their

hands and then under their feet.

But that way they're stimulating the acupoints that we have.

So more of those points are I do, but they don't re you know,

if they just, if they're rolling them in their hands and feet, they

don't have to be hyper accurate.

I used to send them home with a little, a knitting needle and have them actually do

some acupressure on the points themselves.

But I think compliance is rather than.

On that.

Um, but for the go-getters I would still show that, uh, nutrition wise I'm I don't

push a lot of supplements in my practice.

I'm very much a food pusher think in general, so much of us, whether

we have eye diseases or not are malnourished and dehydrated.

And, uh, so I'm especially with.

Older people, if they're single so many people, as they get older,

they've lost a spouse or living alone or, or maybe not have family nearby.

And so cooking becomes, uh, an issue.

So showing them really simple meals, talking about different types of foods,

uh, really healthy foods and the amount of food that they would need in comparison

to supplements to is often quite a.

I think some people think they need to get Carmen Miranda's hat or something,

all these vegetables where you really don't need, you know, I saved both, you

know, a handful of leafy greens a day.

And, uh, so that's very vital or important to get those good nutrition.

Although I do say if people, some people just won't eat a

vegetable to save their life.

So then that route, then I try to talk through the supplement, uh, channel

with them and people may have digestive.

Issues Crohn's disease, something like that, or irritable bowel where

they don't process foods very well.

So having to go there, but there's a great company called nutritional focus that I

like, they use new liquid supplements.

So sometimes that's a route that you have to go.

If the gut is just not going to process food or supplement.

Exercise wise, I try to encourage a sweat a day.

So there's, you know, people make a lot of excuses for not exercising.

And so I have that's part of my health history trying to discern why or why not?

They're they're exercising.

We're showing them even simple things like exercise bands.

Like if they can't get out for visual reasons or other functional reasons, the

exercise bands, they could use those.

Just even see it in a chair.

Or even as this little stationary bicycles or just have the crank, I'm

just trying to give them some options.

And, uh, over the last three years, I've, uh, we have an amazing program

here in Minneapolis called courage, Kenny, and they work with people

with all sorts of disability.

And so I've been a ski racer, uh, most of my life or ski or at least.

And so I work with them taking blind skiers out in the winter,

and it is, uh, just beyond the most rewarding thing I do all year.

I'm seeing these people out with various, I mean, people with no legs,

paralyzed, you know, blind, et cetera, et cetera, all out, trying these things.

And.

I just feel like if I ever complained again, I should be just clubbed

over the head of the boards.

I mean, I remember watching this one guy in, uh, uh, the ski chair and,

uh, just falling over because I'm this almost flats it's bunny hill and

just falling over and pushing himself back up and just falling on, but just

trying and trying, it was so inspiring.

Oh.

So there's all kinds of ways, even if you've got a disability

to, to get some movement, right.

I want to pull this back for a.

On your website.

It's really interesting.

You have a phrase macular regeneration that should catch people's attention.

What can people expect in terms of a change in their sight?

I mean, can you actually regenerate it or do you just

slow it down or even at outlet?

Can the average person expect, and in generally speaking out of a hundred

people, how many do you think.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's a fascinating process when people come in, it was so amazing

about it too, is why I like that idea of regeneration is typically in my dad's

dealing with macular degeneration now.

So it's very personal clients are typically told, well, there's

nothing you can really do.

Um, you're here, maybe take this over the counter vitamin supplement

and, you know, come back and see me.

And so there's really.

This is such a great thing for Chinese medicine to step in and treat because

really with Western medicine and dry form of macular degeneration, there's

really not much treatment available.

And so it's just a tremendous, as I said, the, uh, treatment for us to know.

So typically what most people will notice is an increase in

brightness of their vision.

Usually an improvement in acuity too.

So I'm disappointed if I don't drop people a couple of lines on the eye chart

within those 10 sessions, we also test with the Amsler grid, which looks like a

piece of graph paper@the.in the center.

And so over time, those lines tend to straighten.

There is something definite happening within.

The retina or the eye where.

Uh, I don't know if we're getting just more cheap, more energy

and more blood to the eye.

That's the intent, but it's fascinating to see on the, you know,

the visual field scans or when people get subsequent OCT scans, there's

usually definite changes happening.

So these OCT is, these are the ones that are like the looking at

the sedimentary layers on a river.

You were seeing actual changes in the structure of the retina.

Yeah.

And even I've seen, um, or through the scans, uh, there's I've had

clients with changes in scarring.

So in the past, I don't think they do it so much anymore.

They used to do laser cauterization when those vessels in the retina would bleed.

And that in a sense would fix that problem, but it will

cause visual disturbances.

So I've had people go back to their ophthalmologist like a year or so later.

And like, you know, they can't find this car to.

You know, in some cases, the only thing they've done is the acupuncture.

That's interesting.

You mentioned with the macular degeneration, you said the dry

type, how many types are there and how are they different?

So there's two primary types.

And what we're looking at with these treatments.

So the retinas, the nerve bundle at the back of the eye.

So I was talking about the retina, if you think of it, like big picture.

So what, we're, what we see with, if you think of looking out into a whole.

The very center part of the retina is called the macula and

that's about the central five degrees or so it's quite small.

And with that, we get all of our detailed vision or color vision.

Most, if you think of it, functional vision center of that is called the.

Which is like the sweet spot of our visual.

So, uh, two main forms of macular degeneration, one's called the

refrigerators, the dry form.

So these little plaques called Druze and buildup in these

vessels, in the back of our eye.

And depending on where they are, they're going to obscure

different portions of our vision.

So in that dry form, those little plaques are Druze and just stay inert

and more of a nuisance than anything.

But the more you get, the more vision you're going to lose.

The trouble is when those little vessels break and bleed the so-called

wet form of macular degeneration.

So you can think of it in some ways, like maybe like having a stroke or

I got like a little mini stroke.

So then you get like bleed into that.

The way I explain it, oftentimes it will get on in the class.

I have a slide of, if you had two panes of glass and you squirted paint in

between those and push them together and try to look through that, you're

going to get distortion as well as.

Obstruction vision, depending on where it is.

And how much do you find that the wet and dry versions respond

differently to treatment?

Uh, the dries usually easier to treat because there's less damage to the retina.

Um, if somebody has a really severe bleed, they can expect to do more treatment.

The acupuncture it's just going, can be harder to treat if there's more

damage, but they both tend to respond.

It's just that you've got more debt, generally the wet has more damage.

And so you need more treatment to correct that, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

The, the microsystem, the one that you learned in Arkansas, it sounds like

that's one of the systems, but you've also spent some time in Denmark, correct?

Yes.

And in working with someone out there and there's evidence that.

Yeah.

Another way of thinking about working with the eyes.

Can you clue us in on this?

There's an acupuncturist, uh, there in a son, John bull, junior and senior,

and I've just trained with John junior.

Who's about my age and, uh, had some just really great fun experiences over there.

But his dad started out doing as my understanding of a very similar

system or maybe the same system as pear of my Graco punctured type

system using points by the heads of the metacarpals and medic tarsals.

And over time, I guess, John, senior's quite a tinker and,

uh, these different modalities.

And so he developed to my knowledge, his system, or going

more into the center of the joint.

So rather than the head of the bone, I was going more into the joint space, not

deep into it, but kind of up to the joint.

So it's a different location, but what they have done is made little miniature

spines going around the different joints.

So it's not really based on Chinese medicine at all, but more based

on the dermatomes in the body.

So the nerve maps.

So they're not thinking liver, Charles gallbladder channel,

they're thinking what dramatic tone.

What area?

Exactly.

So it's a, it's a really simplified system of acupuncture, but it

can be really, really profound.

I mean, I've had people in the clinic doing that system.

Uh, and so you only use four points with that system.

So one in each hand and one in each foot per treatment

instead of five in each foot.

Right.

And three in each hand.

So, but I've had people drop even three or four lines on it within two hours.

That's impressive.

Yeah.

Do they, do they also change on that chart with the grid?

And over time, over time, but the acuity seems to be what I notice most impact on.

So that's the first thing that changes is the acuity sometimes, sometimes.

And these again there, so there's a, there's a protocol.

It's it's the hands it's the feet you ever had other points use body points

or, or mix and match in some other Chinese medicine type thinking to yep.

I'll sometimes add points on the forehead.

Um, I know in Denmark, they, at least when I learned they were

adding bladder two and I've for years have added gallbladder 14 and.

But I think any of those, uh, points above the I can work

well, I don't tend to add those.

If there's a heat condition, I will tend to go down and use points on the feet.

I really like stomach 44 and liver two or some of my favorite points

for bringing down a lot of heat or pressure in the head or the eyes rather.

So generally speaking, what can people expect in term?

Of changes and improvement, let's say over the course of six or 12

months, very on a lot of factors.

And that's kind of the, the, uh, you know, people often ask that they want

to know, you know, just that, what can I expect from these treatments?

So much of it depends on, uh, lifestyle.

Have they been a smoker and have they taken care of themselves?

Weight-wise are they obese or not their diet?

As we talked about in my class, there was the young guy with.

Retinal disease with his standard lunch and breakfast was a gas

station, donuts and mountain Dew.

And I finally had to send him away.

You know, I said, you need to talk to him about rectifying his diet and

making a lot of changes because there's just nothing for me to work with.

So typically.

Well, I'm really happy if they drop at least a couple of lines

on the eye chart and they start to notice a increased brightness.

A lot of times they'll notice an increased sense of color.

So things just seem to be brighter.

It's almost like, uh, you know, there's opening of the eyes too.

I also think it goes very much.

Unexamined this idea of the emotions in acupuncture.

And I have this term that I use called Shen stagnation, where, where

some people are just so stagnated in their ability to express emotion.

And I see this quite often with especially older women who haven't been

given a voice, you know, and then maybe they have this overbearing husband

or been, had a very subservient role.

So there's this idea of them not having.

Been able to express themselves or who they are, their, their ShaoYin or

their spirit throughout their life.

And I don't see that as more of like a, maybe that's the cause

of their macular degeneration.

Do you notice people's emotional habits changing with treatment

or do they come back and report.

Changes in that way.

Well, what's amazing.

And how with Chinese medicine, why I think it's so important to, or why

it's so great that we can treat these diseases is I don't look at macular

degeneration as a eye disease, per se.

I look at it as a systemic circulatory disorder because there's little

plaques, chemically, and structurally are virtually the same as any other

plaques that are in our body and our heart or brain and so phlegm.

Exactly.

But just the fact that it's in the eye.

You know, it's not just in the eye.

I mean, that's, I think that's observed.

Think that way.

I think it's systemic.

So in looking at the whole body, as we do in Chinese medicine is so important to do

everything we can to help with circulation and not just concentrate on the eye,

because it, to me, it's not an iPad.

It's a circulatory problem.

So this is, so I think that's where the disconnect is with Western medicine

where they're so focused on just the eye that the eye is the problem,

but the eye that I sort of maybe the effect or something, it's the, uh,

it's the branch, it's the branch.

It's not the root in the class.

We talk about root and branch and that's such a fundamental.

Thought with Chinese medicine that, that there's the branch manifestations

and then there's the underlying root.

Right.

And we need to pay attention to both of those.

Right?

So you're teaching classes.

I am, yeah.

I saw a definite need for it.

And as I talked earlier about, you know, this, the challenge is

there's so few of us doing this.

Protocols.

And I just think it, it drives me crazy, um, on one hand.

Sure.

I'm flattered.

If somebody comes from, you know, out of town to see me, but by the

same token, then they're going to go home and then how do they get

continuing care as part of the scene?

Right.

And I differ on with pear on that and that I don't, you

know, I'm thinking, what does.

Chronic degenerative disease.

We treat twice a year with Chinese medicine.

And so that was kind of his protocol was that people come

either once or twice a year.

But to me that just never made any sense.

Like how do you, how do you maintain that level of wellness?

And so I'm very much trying to cultivate a local.

Clientele.

But then when people come from farther away, I do my best to try to have them

either send their acupuncturist to one of my classes are all, I'll get online and to

NCCO em, and try to find an acupuncturist in their area that maybe you can come

to one of my classes because to me.

It's a supply demand problem to a large degree.

I mean, as I said, we could be helping 30 million people, 20 million, 30

million, who knows, supposedly 8 million people at least will have these, uh,

macular degeneration by 20, 22 years.

So, uh, you know, we just, we need more of us doing this and,

uh, you know, I've run into some.

Practitioners who think this should maintain or be like some

high cost protocol that only certain acupuncturists can learn.

Um, which to me is absolutely absurd.

As you probably saw from the class.

It's not incredibly difficult to learn, but if there is a process to learning

it, But once you properly learn, it is not difficult to practice at all.

And so to me, this should be, these protocols should be taught in the schools

and they should be, I mean, it should be like treating spleen, QI deficiency

or something if the different protocols and about the diseases and how to go

about treating the different conditions.

I mean, it's, it drives me bananas that we're not teaching these morn.

Well, the reason that I am here@theinternationalheadquartersofpenndoctor.com

is because.

Just recently take the class.

And one of the things that was really interesting for me about it

is that yes, there are these points.

And when I look at, uh, a little point chart, you know,

are you telling me where it is?

I think it's in a certain place, but actually, especially with the,

uh, the micro acupuncture there, the heads of the, uh, of the long

bones in the hands and the feet.

They're actually a little tricky to find it first.

They're not exactly where I thought they were.

And there's some very specific ways that you have of needling these.

So absolutely any acupuncturist can learn it, but there's

a, the hands-on piece of it.

I found really helpful.

So I keep my classes very small.

Um, I limit them to 12, but that's really important to me.

Like you said, these, these protocols aren't difficult to learn, but they are

been nuanced, especially the acronym.

Protocol.

And so that's the one that I learned from John bull.

Yep.

Where are they going?

Where you going into the joint space here?

And I asked John and his wife Korean very specifically, if I could show

in my classes, show practitioners how to do that and talk about that.

And they agreed, but I'm also, I've sent probably at least 10 students over to

Denmark to very good funnel for them.

Cause I, so they do a lot of, um, do they do primarily.

I, I, you know, I can punch it for ISER.

Are they treating ever that they will treat anything, they'll treat anything

with their particular microsystem, right.

Using the dramatic tones, basically when they see eye patients, what is

their sort of treatment schedule?

Same, same type of protocol.

So they'll usually have people come for a week or.

I think with the more severe diseases people stay for two weeks.

So they do a week or two and then some sort of regular follow-up and

I'll, um, Denmark is not very easy to get to it's in Northern Denmark.

So it's probably about a, um, I went up there as maybe a, um, two and a half

hour train ride, or so from Copenhagen.

So they're kind of out in the boonies.

They are, they've got a big acupuncture clinic out in the boonies.

Yeah.

But people come from.

To get treatment there, but I wonder if we can just circle back

to what you were talking about with the points and in the classes.

Well, I've had many acupunctures contact me like, oh, what are the points?

Show me the, tell me the points.

But the point I, no pun intended make in the class.

And with the practitioners, it's not about learning.

The points is about learning the whole system about how to understand that.

Conditions, what are they?

What does retinitis pigmentosa?

What does Stargardt's, what is macular degeneration then also learning

about the different types of Western medical treatments what's available.

What are the, we talk about the different ice scans.

So if you have a patient come in with an OCT, you at least have some

understanding like, oh, that's what?

That is a visual field scan.

And then actually doing the needling is so important to me to have a small group.

Cause I I'm, I'm a little bruised here on one digit, but I have every student

needle me multiple times because especially with the AQI Nova, because

it is so nuanced, it's a peculiar style kneeling, but I want them to do it.

Right.

And so it just wouldn't work and it probably won't see me.

Uh, Sheraton room of 300 or whatever, right?

Matt, is there anything else that you'd like to share with

our listeners here today?

I would just encourage acupunctures to not be afraid of

treating the eyes for one thing.

And there seems to be a lot of, kind of misinformation out there

about these protocols and who can do them and why and whatnot, but

I, you know, working on some other.

Projects to try to get, um, some book projects and, and video to try to make it

as accessible and available as possible.

It's just, we need more of us doing these protocols.

That's the bottom line.

It sounds like it would be able to help a lot of people.

Yeah.

Yup.

Yup.

Thank you for the work you're doing and thanks for being on the show.