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My Qi experience

Flange Desire said:
That make no cents!
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Funny thing - you being from Melbourne should know AU$0.02 is worth less then a nickel - since we don't have 1 or 2 cent coins, AU$0.02 is always rounded down to 0!
The only way to get the 2 cents back is to pay with a credit card or EFTPOS!
 
joller said:
Funny thing - you being from Melbourne should know AU$0.02 is worth less then a nickel - since we don't have 1 or 2 cent coins, AU$0.02 is always rounded down to 0!
The only way to get the 2 cents back is to pay with a credit card or EFTPOS!
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Should know, but I'm not that sure that I actually give a buck.
 
Imrational said:
You are assigning a causal relationship where there might not be one. Did it occur to you that you might have had a viral illness that night instead of a massage reaction? I can see you being sore after a deep tissue massage... after all, therapists can actually cause tissue damage when they do deep work, but fever & chills sound much more like an illness.

Yes, Lactic acid is a by-product of anaerobic respiration... yet why would a massage cause stronger symptoms than if you did some sprint work (running really fast) and got your heartrate into the anaerobic range? Lactic acid has been made a "bogey-man" by the massage industry.
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I have trained as a massage "therapist"(!). I agree that the lactic acid thing has been built up out of all proportion. I think they came up with in in response to the un-named toxin bull and people buy it because they already know lactic acid is found in muscles. In fact if you read the articles at Massage Today you will find tests that show lactic acid removal is not much helped by massage. I think I remember them countering the whole "drink lots of water" advice you are supposed to give people as after-care advice too.

However, people feeling woozy, lightheaded and sometimes queasy is so common in subjects of deep massage that something is going on. I haven't got a clue what it is. It has nothing to do with Qi and probably nothing to do with lactic acid. I'm not sure anyone knows exactly what is going on when you are massaged. It is certainly physically relaxing, it eases aches and pains and seems to speed recovery (runners love it). You can feel the "knots" in the muscles when you start and you can feel the difference in them when you finish.

I've had a lot of chronic back pain over the years. When going through an episode I feel achey, tired, unfocussed and a bit ill in the rest of my body too. I'm of the impression that chronic muscular tension is upsetting to other systems in some way. Maybe the release of that tension can has somewhat systemic effects?
 
Mangel said:
I got myself a traditional Chinese massage the other day by a 'Qi' master, and:

Five minutes in a got a sick feeling in my stomach, like I wanted to throw up.

Ten minutes in I got dizzy and light headed to the point that if I had of been standing I would have fallen over, so I had to ask him to stop.

For fifteen minutes after it, my fingers felt like the blood flow had been interupted(had pins and needles).

He had been massaging my back, neck, and shoulders. He claimed the 'energy release' was what was affecting me. Thoughts?
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Other people have replied adequately, but I want to ask you a question.

Let's assume that this Qi thingie is real. This guy claims to be knowledgable and experienced enough to set up a business where he takes people's money in return for a massage. He also claims to be a Qi "master".

And yet, he almost immediately makes you sick?

Does this in any way make you suspicious about his abilities to control this "energy"?
 
CFLarsen said:
Other people have replied adequately, but I want to ask you a question.

Let's assume that this Qi thingie is real. This guy claims to be knowledgable and experienced enough to set up a business where he takes people's money in return for a massage. He also claims to be a Qi "master".

And yet, he almost immediately makes you sick?

Does this in any way make you suspicious about his abilities to control this "energy"?
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Excellent and so-blindingly-obvious-I-missed-it question, Claus.

I'll have to remember this for other arenas.
 
Maybe not relevant but I get similar sensations just now when I relax. I've lost a lot of sleep over the past few months for various reasons. I keep myself going but when I relax the exhaustion hits with similar sensations of nausea and dizziness.
 
Garrette said:
Excellent and so-blindingly-obvious-I-missed-it question, Claus.

I'll have to remember this for other arenas.
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It's not that impressive.

Just because the guy can channel Qi doesn't mean that it is possible for anyoen to control all of it's effects. He might say.

There are plenty of orthodox treatments which make you feel initially worse.
 
Maybe not lactic acid, but there are quite a lot of other things which might be sequestered in the resting muscle mass, which could be released into circulation by a massage. I know I often speculate that venous blood electrolyte concentrations don't always truly reflect the concentrations of the electrolytes in the deep muscle masses, for example clinical signs extremely suggestive of hypokalaemia, where only a mild hypokalaemia is measured in the venous blood. Theoretically, it could go the other way too.

It might be interesting to run a wide range of routine chemistries before and after such a massage to see if there is any obvious change. I wonder if this has ever been done?

Rolfe.
 
Splossy said:
It's not that impressive.

Just because the guy can channel Qi doesn't mean that it is possible for anyoen to control all of it's effects. He might say.

There are plenty of orthodox treatments which make you feel initially worse.
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Perhaps. But we know about these side effects, because they have been studied scientifically, and can be explained scientifically. Qi hasn't.

It also does destroy an often-heard claim that it can't do any harm. Obviously, this is so dangerous that even experienced Qi "masters" can't control it.

So, why run the risk?
 
Rolfe said:
Maybe not lactic acid, but there are quite a lot of other things which might be sequestered in the resting muscle mass, which could be released into circulation by a massage. I know I often speculate that venous blood electrolyte concentrations don't always truly reflect the concentrations of the electrolytes in the deep muscle masses, for example clinical signs extremely suggestive of hypokalaemia, where only a mild hypokalaemia is measured in the venous blood. Theoretically, it could go the other way too.

It might be interesting to run a wide range of routine chemistries before and after such a massage to see if there is any obvious change. I wonder if this has ever been done?

Rolfe.
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I've seen a few tests akin to that sort of thing: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6654554&dopt=Abstract

CFLarsen said:
Perhaps. But we know about these side effects, because they have been studied scientifically, and can be explained scientifically. Qi hasn't.

It also does destroy an often-heard claim that it can't do any harm. Obviously, this is so dangerous that even experienced Qi "masters" can't control it.

So, why run the risk?
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Is that what people say? In kung fu films they use it to harm people.
 
Crikey. It also appears that Chi mastery allows you to be a competent martial artist whilst also being a fat tub'o'lard too.
 
I think Imrational has hit this one on the head.
All the symptoms are classic for hyperventilation. Without realising it, the likeliest reason is that your breathing rate rose (anticipation, excitement, mild anxiety, mild discomfort?) and this continued over about 5-10 minutes will lead to your breathing off too much CO2. Your blood becomes more alkalotic. This results in light-headedness/dizziness, nausea, and a cramping/numbing sensation or pins and needles in your extremities.

We used to do these experiments in med school. If you are willing to try and re-create the sensation, try and breath fast for 1-2 minutes and see how you feel. In the massage situation, with only a slight increase in resp rate, the onset will be slower and the symptoms might vary a little.
 
CFLarsen said:
Perhaps. But we know about these side effects, because they have been studied scientifically, and can be explained scientifically. Qi hasn't.

It also does destroy an often-heard claim that it can't do any harm. Obviously, this is so dangerous that even experienced Qi "masters" can't control it.

So, why run the risk?
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Here's another 'back in my woo-days' fact-ette.

When I was learning various 'alternative' healing techniques, any adverse reaction was always assigned to 'the healing crisis'. This is when your body's healing processes are kick started, and your body is unprepared for the movement of energies, qi, toxins, whichever.... that it doesn't usually have to deal with. We were always advised to warn our clients that they would probably feel worse before getting better, and not to worry about it.
 
Ok. I'm not a doctor or anything even similar, so take my thoughts/questions for what they're worth.

Could dizziness, sleepiness and nausea felt after a massage simply be something akin to "overstimulation"? Stimulating blood flow to all other parts of the body removes some of the blood flow to the brain? Sort of similar to the mental state you get into after a big meal.

What about the mental stimulation of it all? I know it feels relaxing to us, but how does the brain interpret all that sensation? I mean, you've got (probably) a complete stranger doing strange things to your body, some of them kind of hurt, sometimes, and you're laying there partly undressed and vulnerable. Could our brain be getting confused a bit as to whether we're being attacked, sexually stimulated, or some other kind of sensation as yet unexperienced that causes us to experience symptoms similar to a mild case of shock?

I'm curious as to whether people who have had many massages and get them often experience the same kind of effects, or if they get used to it, so it doesn't affect them that way after a while.

Which then they chalk it up to "having good Qi"..

Meg
 
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