 One of the most interesting and mysterious parts of Chinese medicine is this idea of acupuncture channels or meridians and acupuncture points. Now in this video, I want to give just a practical example of as we palpate the channels, what do we actually find and what do we look for and what do they actually indicate. So let's jump in. We're going to check out what's going on in Julie's body here and we're going to see what we can find. We're just going to start just with the spleen and the kidney channels. So when we talk about channel findings, I've shot other videos on this, but one of the main things we first look for it can just be temperature. All right. So the first thing I feel is that her feet are freezing cold. No doubt because my hands are freezing cold, but she does tend to run cold and I know her and that by itself is a finding on its own. Right. And then we just start with the spleen and the kidney channels, right. And the medial part of the foot. And so I go down the spleen channel and we just feel, is this soft? Is this hard? Does it feel dry? Does it feel like there's some moisture there? And it feels like it has a healthy texture, but it's a little soft. And then we're just going to come up and just sort of scan these foot channels here. We're going to come to the kidney and already as we palpate the kidney channel, you can already see how sunken in just this area around the medial malleolus between that and the Achilles. This is the kidney channel. You can see that this area is really abnormally sunken. You can see that if we trace right along the Achilles, it just falls into a dip that is deeper than the average person you would find near the Achilles. So this is the source point of the kidneys, kidney three. Very often what I've seen is that when the Achilles area here right near the medial malleolus is excessively sunken, it can potentially be a sign of congenital kidney deficiency. So people like this tend to historically have low blood pressure. So then we can ask, do you tend towards low blood pressure? I do. She does. Now I look like I'm a wizard of some kind. So just an interesting finding. Sometimes you see that on the kidney channel. The continuity is not quite there. So spleen channel we began with. We're going to go into the kidney channel a bit. So that just jumped out just visually, right? It's a very interesting finding. And we're just going to trace the spleen channel a little bit. There's a little bit of nodularity. This is actually tender. Yeah. So this is getting towards the sheik left point of the spleen, this general area. And so there's a finding in the spleen channel there. Sometimes as you trace the channel on the upper spleen channel around spleen 9, you can feel lumps or nodules. So sometimes there people have issues with fluid metabolism. So the fluid metabolism issue can be bloating, gas, low appetite, things like that. Sometimes food sensitivities, sometimes urinary issues is very common. So that just jumps out. You can trace the liver, more attention in that area too. You can go up the kidney. And then I'm going to come on this foot. We're just going to go right from the liver. We're going to come just sort of up the stomach channel here. See what we can find. And in general, the stomach channel has some tension to it, but it doesn't jump out as being in terms of texture and continuity. So, you know, these ancient doctors described the channels, these meridians as waterways. So it's a helpful analogy or metaphor to view the human body in terms of what we were trying to actually do, which is originally Chinese medicine is focused on the free flow of Qi and circulation. So you can trace the channels to get clues for what channels are diseased or having problems or blocks, as well as where do we have to needle or what do we have to actually do in order to make these organs function better. So fundamentally, you can just start with texture. We just trace the channel. You know, the sunken kidney point is very diagnostic. There's some tension right in the middle of the spleen channel here as we go up through. We're not going to do the upper leg channels, but we're going to go to the abdomen for a second here. We can do the same thing just very quickly on the abdomen. I have a whole video on abdominal diagnosis and what we look for, but we can start with the same thing. Just look at the overall temperature and the texture and tone. If you just scan the abdomen, common areas where you feel cold patches are the epigastric area and areas in the low abdomen on a lot of women. So this epigastric area, sometimes you feel there's a temperature differential versus the middle versus upper. Then we look at the texture, right? So in Julie's case, epigastrium is soft. There's not too much subcostal tension here. Any discomfort there? Tiny bit of tension, yeah. Upper right. So very often upper right tension. There may be an issue going on with the gallbladder or sort of a reflux tendency. Is that true for you? A little bit of reflux this week, but barely. Okay, but historically. So tend to see some clues like that. And then in terms of down the red line, now we know Julie's had surgery here, so this is not necessarily diagnostic besides maybe scar tissue. And then we check for tone elsewhere, right? So I've described in the abdominal diagnosis video that the low abdomen is often, for women, very often is an issue with the blood circulation. So we call it or hormonal issue. So we call these areas of blood stasis, blood stagnation. So very commonly these areas we use formulas that are used for gynecological issues. So it's common to see dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, fibroids, cysts, that kind of thing. But I'm not getting much in the low abdomen on her. It feels pretty clean and pretty clear. A little bit of tension up in here. So these channel findings, I mean anatomically, a few soon away from the belly button is the stomach. So it's stomach 25, often used for diarrhea, loose stools, stomach issues, intestinal issues, that kind of thing. And actually, I mean, the abdomen in many ways has its own specialized form of diagnosis where sure, some of these issues may be on the spleen or kidney channel, but they may anatomically really be gall bladder issues for some people, for example. So we've gone through the abdomen a little bit. And then let's go over here to the arm and, you know, we can scan a number of channels. We can scan the lung channel, pericardium channel, heart channel. And what we can look for, you know, one common finding we find in the lung channel that I've seen is that there tends to be nodularity, these lumps, as we get more towards the elbow. So right in this area, sometimes people with a history of allergies or asthma or respiratory problems, you'll get these really tough knots. And they're not people who are working manual labor or lifting weights, but you'll get these areas of nodding tension, right in the lung channel here. Sometimes in the heart channel, you get these little grainy, sandy like feeling, little sensations, but I'm not getting much here. Sometimes on the outer arm, sometimes we go down the triple warmer, the san jaw channel. And sometimes you can get some interesting findings up in here. Sometimes they're right in the medial portion. And sometimes they're as we kind of go towards the elbow here and small intestine, nothing really jumps out too much here on me. But in general, you know, as we scan these channels, what we're looking for is temperature findings and differentials, texture, as well as specific findings, like lumps or indentations or just little areas that are granular or pea-sized shapes. So by scanning the channels, by going over them via palpation, you can often uncover clues about the person's medical history and what they currently have going on with their health.