The ameloblastoma surgery is now fading away and my main priority is recovery, and so I have turned to acupuncture as one way to stimulate the blood flow. The swelling on the face has now reduced and I am not on pain killers, nor missing nights of sleep. Alex Tan of Straightbamboo is a delightful, knowledgeable and sensible acupuncture practitioner at the Hutong here in Beijing. I decided to have acupuncture as a way to stimulate the blood to the face for the bone growth. The Chinese consider the flow of 'Qi,' life force, to be essential for good health. There are some 400 acupuncture points and 20 meridians connecting most of the points. These 20 meridians include the "twelve regular channels" or "twelve regular meridians", with each meridian corresponding to each organ; nourishing it and extending to an extremity. The jaw is connected to the stomach, no surprisingly perhaps, by a meridian and so part of the treatment is to stimulate the meridian in the face which connects with the digestive system to release more nutrients. Insertion of the needles is relatively painless, penetrating down to 5mm in places into the sublayer of skin, but not into the flesh.
