KHT: Korean Hand Therapy for Instant Pain Relief

Author:

Dan Lobash, Ph.D., L.Ac.

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KHT: Korean Hand Thearpy for Instant Pain Relief

KHT is one of the best, fastest acting natural methods of pain relief available for healing pain and malfunction of the body. KHT is convenient because the healing action is accomplished through the hands, which most people can easily reach and see (versus the greater difficulty of other micro systems like the foot and ear). KHT is safe and can be effectively applied by all ages for both acute and chronic pain problems. This article will be limited to pain reduction applications KHT, although the system can be applied to all medical conditions.

Simplicity Itself

Before you read the rest of this article, here is a summation of the entire process of self-healing:

The entire body is represented on the hands as shown in Figure 1
Information concerning every problem, irregularity, discomfort, disease etc. in the body is recorded in the hands at the location that corresponds to problem area of the body.
The corresponding point can easily be located because it is very sensitive to pressing with a small probe, Figure 2
Pressing on the correct corresponding point will cause a reflex reaction such as jerking the hand, grimacing, saying, "oh, oh, oh" or some such act indicating that indeed the corresponding point has been pressed.
Stimulate that point and the pain and problem will instantly begin to hange/disappear.
You can then maximize pain reduction by applying either a small metal disc, or a small magnet or hand needles as shown later in this article.
The entire procedure can be repeated as needed until the body has harmonized and healed itself.

When the above process is followed, pain, tension and body discomfort will be instantly reduced from 50 to 100% with one application.


Fig.1: Spine and Left and Right Side Representation	Fig.2 : Probe and Metal Pellets

What most people do not realize is that all of the information about all aspects of the body is available throughout the entire body. The body is like a giant holographic record. Every point in the body has real time information about the entire body.

Through the hands you can perform three basic functions:

Assessment of current health and illness.
Identification of the exact points on the hands that correspond to problems in the body.
Treatment and resolution of problems identified through stimulation of hand corresponding points.

The holographic mapping of the body on the hands used in KHT is the one discovered and tested by its founder, Dr. Tae Woo Yoo, OMD, Ph.D., of South Korea. He is a doctor of traditional oriental medicine in Korea.

In the past, working on the micro-systems such as the hand or the foot has been called "reflex therapy" or "reflexology". What is becoming apparent is that there are many, many patterns of the body mapped on the hands and that all of these overlap each other without interfering with the operation of any one of them.

For example, in KHT, the little finger corresponds to the leg. Therefore, any leg problem, such as a spasm, will have a corresponding point on the little finger. However, in another system, the leg is represented on the middle finger and the spasm corresponding point can be found there. Stimulation of the corresponding point in each system will give spasm and pain relief.

Basic Principles

The hands, as well as every other part of the body, contain many different representations of the body. The patterns on the hands seem especially effective in accessing the energetics of the body for diagnosis and treatment due to the very high concentration of neurological connections between the hands and the brain.

Fig. 4 Finding Corresponding Tender Points with a Probe

Corresponding points on the hands are very tender compared with hand tissue immediately adjacent to the point.
The practitioner must find the exact corresponding points. If there is a strong pain or problem in the body, then the hand will reflect that situation with sensitivity levels correlated with actual body problem levels.
When the corresponding points on the hands are stimulated, the body initiates the healing process, including pain reduction.

There are many methods to stimulate corresponding points and include:

Pressing
Ionic acupressure pellets
Infrared and far infrared heat
Electric current, and many other methods

Scope of KHT

There are two sets of information mapped on the hands. The first set is the correspondence of all of the organs and structures of the body, as shown in Figure 5. All physical aspects of the body can be accessed through these corresponding points.

The second set of information is the entire body meridian system projected onto the hands in miniature form, Figure 6. All of the operations an acupuncturist performs on the body with needles can be done on the hands with or without needles. Discussion and application of the meridian system will not be included here as this is beyond the scope of this article.


Fig. 5 Internal Organ Correspondences	Fig. 6 Micro meridians Correspondence to Body Meridians

Treating Yourself with KHT

In order to treat yourself with KHT you need to learn a few preliminaries:

Relationship of the Hand and the Body

The hand and body have a very specific structural relationship. If you look at your hand you can see a similarity between the fingers protruding from the hand and the arms and legs protruding from the trunk of the body. Look at the relationship of the person walking on all fours and the hand shown in Fig. 7 and Figure 1.

Fig 7 The relationship between the hand and the body

The palm of the hand corresponds to the front of the body. Any pain experienced on your face, or front of your neck, chest , upper and lower abdomen, and the inside of your legs and arms (the portion of your arms and legs not exposed to the sun), can be found on the palmer side of the hand. See Figs. 8 to Fig 10 and memorize the corresponding relationships of body to hand.


Fig 8 Relationship of the Body and Palms	Fig 9 Correspondence of Inside of the Arm and Ring Finger	Fig 10 Relationship of Inside of Leg and Little Finger

The Dorsal-Back Relationships

The entire spine and key landmark relationships area shown in Fig 11, 12 and 13 shown below.


Fig 11 Base Of Neck to Coccyx	Fig 12 Neck	Fig 13 Top of the Head to Coccyx

Back of the Head

The spine correspondence is located on the middle finger and metacarpal. The tip of the middle finger corresponds to the very top of your head. The back surface of the head from the base of the skull to the top of the head corresponds to the third phalange from the last joint (the distal or 3rd joint) to the finger tip. See Figure 14 below.

Fig.14: Relationship of Head and Last Phalange of Middle Finger

Spine: Cervical-Neck Vertebra: C-1 to C-7

The base of the skull corresponds to the junction of the 2nd and 3rd cervical vertebra. Cervical 2 to Cervical 7 (all of the neck vertebra) corresponds to the area from the 3rd (distal joint) to the 2nd joint (proximal joint), as shown in Fig 15.

The first cervical, or axis vertebrae, is located in the soft tissue between the distal joint line and the cuticle of the finger nail of the middle finger.

Fig. 16: Cervical Spine: C2/3 to C-7

Imagine that the three dimensional shape of your finger between these two joints corresponds to your neck. If your neck problem is sensed/felt/experienced in the center of your spine, then the correspondence will be found on the mid-line of your middle finger as shown in Fig 16.

If your problem is lateral to the left side of the mid-line, then the corresponding point will be located to the left of the midline of both hands. However, for left sided problems, search and treat on the left hand, and vice versa for right sided problems. Keep in mind that the entire body correspondence is located on each hand. However, by experience, we find that using the hand on the same side of the midline for searching and treating produces a slightly better result.

Spine: Upper Back Thoracic Vertebra from T-1 to T-7/8

Problems experienced in the upper back from the base of the neck to bottom tip of the scapula, from T-1 to T-7/8 are found on the middle finger dorsal surface between the first and second joints, as shown in Fig 17

Fig. 17: T1 to T7/8—Bottom Level of Scapula

Spine: Mid back to Coccyx: T-8 to Coccyx

There are 12 Thoracic and 5 Lumbar vertebras. The upper back includes T-1 to T-8. The mid-back then includes T-9 through the tip of the coccyx, as shown in Fig. 18. If you divide the length of the 3rd metacarpal (hand bone) from the 1st joint with the finger bone to the base (end) of the metacarpal near the wrist in half, then that point corresponds to the second Lumbar vertebra.

Fig 18 How to Locate Lumbar Spine

Any pain along the spine or in the muscles lateral to the spine can be easily located on the hands and treated.

Arms

The arm correspondences have a very logical relationship to the body. From Figure 19 you can see that on the right hand, the ring finger corresponds to the right arm and on the left hand, the index finger corresponds to the right arm also.

The dorsal (top) surface of the ring and index fingers corresponds to the top surface of the arms. The top surface can be defined as this: If both hands are held up in the air with finger tips pointed toward the sky, then the "tops" of the arms is that seen viewing from the back. Conversely, the "bottom surface" is seen from the front view.

The first joint between the hand and the finger bone corresponds to the shoulder joint. The second finger joint (proximal) joint corresponds to the elbow. The wrist joint corresponds to the last, 3rd, or distal joint of the finger.


Fig.19: Relationship of Arm and Ring Finger	Fig. 20: Location of the Hand Correspondence

Hands

The hand correspondences are located on your finger tips, from the last (3rd) joint to end of the finger tips. The thumb correspondence is on the middle finger side of the ring finger tip and the little finger correspondence is located on the little finger side of the finger tip, Figure 20.

Legs

The leg correspondences have a very logical relationship to the body. From Figure 21 you can see that on the right hand, the little finger corresponds to the right leg and on the left hand, the thumb corresponds to the right arm.

The dorsal (top) surface of the little and thumb fingers correspond to the area of the leg that includes the mid-point of the front of the knee/leg around the lateral side to the middle of the back of the knee. The palmer side of the little finger and thumb corresponds to the area from the mid point of the back of the leg, around the inside and ending on the mid point of the knee/leg on the front.

Fig. 21: Location of Hip Joint, Knee and Ankle

The first joint between the hand and the finger bone corresponds to the hip joint. The second finger joint (proximal joint) corresponds to the knee. The ankle joint corresponds the last, 3rd, or distal joint of the finger, Figure 21.

Feet

The feet correspondences are located on your finger tips, from the last (3rd) joint to end of the finger tips. The big toe correspondence is on the middle finger side of the little finger tip and the little toe correspondence is located on the outside edge of the little finger tip, Figure 21.

Review Figures 19 through 21 to find the appropriate location on the fingers for arm and leg problems.

How to Find the Right Corresponding Points on the Hands

The starting point is to identify as precisely as possible exactly where the pain, spasm, or discomfort is experienced on your own or another’s body. The next step is to translate the body location to the corresponding hand location.

The final step is to systematically press the locating probe, one point at a time, over the small area where you expect to find the point.

This procedure is the most difficult to express in words. If the pain or discomfort is one point on the body, then there will be one very precise point on the hand. On the other hand, if the pain is widespread and diffuse, then there will be a correspondingly wider area of tender points on the hand.

See Figure 22 for the type of probe recommended for point location.

Fig. 22: Probing for the Corresponding Point

Point Treatment Methods

The general principle underlying effective treatment is to apply stimulation to the corresponding points. The stimulation can be of several types: mechanical pressure with tools or fingers, small metal disks tapped over the corresponding points, miniature acupuncture needles, magnetic pellets taped over the point, vibration, infrared and far infrared rays, seeds, color gels, to name a few. The focus here will be on massage and the small disks taped over the corresponding points (see Figures 23 through 25).


Fig.23: Variety of Pellets	Fig. 24: No 1 Pellets	Fig. 25: Hand Magnets

Finger Massage: As soon as you press on a corresponding point that elicits a motor response in the person you are working on, or is especially intense/strong, then continue to massage that point-area until the intensity decreases or feels dull instead of sharp. If the location is correct, the pain reduction effect is immediately noticeable.

Point Finder Massage: Pressing and performing a rotating massage action with the small tip of the Point Probe is especially effective as your pressure can be focused on the exact corresponding points.

Metal Pellets on tape backing as shown in Fig. 24 are very effective treatments stimulators. The metal pellets are made of Aluminum with a special non-toxic, anti-oxidizing coating. Taping the pellet over a corresponding point has an effect on the ion concentration at that location. The change information generated by the presence of the pellets signals the brain and from the brain a healing cascade is initiated and immediately the pain level drops and the tissue/muscles relax in the painful area, among other changes.

If, after applying the pellets, there is no change in pain, check your location as this method works virtually 99% of the time when the location is correctly found. The one exception is when the pain is due to tissue damage such as a torn rotator cuff in the shoulder or a tear in the meniscus in the knee. Keep this in mind as one possibility if your results are minimal.

Probe Massage and Pellets: The best pain reduction effect can be achieved with the combination of first massaging the tender corresponding points with the Point Probe and then applying the metal pellet. The presence of the pellet for the next 24 hours acts as a reminder to the brain-body system of the desired energetic pain reduction effect.

Time of Pellet Application: The minimum time for pellet application for acute problems is 6 hours and 24 for chronic problems. After 24 hours, remove the pellets and allow the skin to breathe. A good treatment strategy is to arrange a time each evening before bed to search and find the tender corresponding points on the hands and place the pellets over the corresponding points.

In the morning, remove the pellets and save them on the end table for that evening. This process may have to be repeated each night for as much as several months for lasting healing. Remember that the body heals on its own speed and not always on what we wish and hope for.

Limiting Factors on Pellet Re-Use: Pellets can be re-used as long as they do not tarnish due to body oils/sweat, etc. Clinical experience suggests that pellets should not be used for more than 7 days. The suggestion above to remove the pellets during the day and replace them is merely a practical consideration. They tend to come off due to hand washing, perspiration and simply use of the hands. The palms are more difficult to retain pellets than the dorsal surface.

Tape-Over Strategy: People sometimes find that if they remove the pellets, their pain returns, so they disregard any rules about removal and wear the pellets for a week or more at one time. In order to accomplish this, it is helpful to tape over the pellets with a tape.

See Figure 27 for an example of pellets secured with tape.

To Press or Not to Press: There is some benefit to periodically massage your hand through the taped on pellets. For example, every three hours press on the pellets with a circular massaging action from the opposite hand, as shown in Fig 28.

Figure 28 Massaging Acupressure through the Pellets

Example of How to Treat a Headache

First clearly identify exactly where your head hurts. Then decide, on a ten point scale, where "0" is no pain and "10" is excruciating pain, where your pain level falls. Having done this, you are ready to search your hand for tender corresponding points. Using the probe shown previously, begin your search in the general corresponding area.

Fig.27 Headache and Middle Finger Corresponding Area of Right Side Forehead

You will definitely find a point, as indicated, that is especially tender compared to surrounding points, When you press surrounding, but off-target points, you will feel "pressure" from pressing with the probe but it will not have the stinging or burning sensation you will feel when you are on target. Also, when you find the correct point, and place a pellet on it, then very likely another area will come to your attention as painful. This is to be expected as the doors to perception of pain are closed except for the highest priority pain.

If another pain appears, then find its corresponding point and repeat the above procedure. If you don’t have pellets, then massage the point with your probe, or any similarly shaped object such as a ball point pen. Massage until you pain is relieved. Re-access your headache location and pain level.

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