The surprising connection between foot pain and the breastbone …

My husband Jim is quite active. He runs, plays tennis and lifts weights. He’s also quite healthy, as far as he’s concerned, except for his right foot.

It tends to swell up. It’s something that’s happened for a number of years.

The Symptom

Lately it started to hurt occasionally.

For the record Jim doesn’t want me to be his healer. However he does enjoy a nice foot rub.

The other night as I sat down to give him a foot rub, he asked me not to touch his right foot, as there was throbbing pain on the outside of it. To be exact the pain was along the line between the 4th toe and the pinky toe. That happens to be the last segment of the Gallbladder meridian.

Your Gallbladder meridian starts at the outside corner of your eyes, covering the side of your head down your neck and down the side of your body, zigzagging on the side of your head and trunk. On your thighs it runs on the outside along the seam of your pants, down to the ankles and straight out of the lateral side of the 4th toes.

The Treatment

Once I identified the meridian on which the pain was sitting, I made a loose fist with my right hand and started digging into his breastbone with my knuckles, from the top near the throat all the way down to the distal tip of the breastbone, right above the abdominal cavity. Its official name is the sternum.

“It hurts a little bit.” He said as I dug in on the softer part of the breastbone.
“Good!” I replied.

Next I dug my fingers in between the ribs on either side of the breastbone.
“That hurts a bit too.” He commented.

The Result

“How’s your right foot?” I asked.
“Strange! The throbbing pain has stopped. It still hurts but it’s way better.”

A few minutes later I was ready to call it a night.

The following morning he told me:
“Not sure if it’s because of what you did. The swelling in my right foot has gone way down. It also doesn’t hurt anymore!”

“Great! Now that you know it works, here’s your homework assignment: massage your sternum every day.” I smiled while giving him a recommendation.

The Diagnosis

This is a straight-forward case using a combination of Chinese Medicine and Eden Energy Medicine.

According to Chinese Medicine, wherever there is smooth flow of Qi there’s no pain, wherever there is pain there’s a blockage of Qi flowing.

According to Eden Energy Medicine in which I’m trained, there’s a category of points and lines on the body called neuro-lymphatic points. As the name indicates, they connect the meridians to the lymphatic system. Massaging the neuro-lymphatic points of a particular meridian removes toxins and congestion from a meridian. It also sends fresh energy to the meridian and related organ system.

Now let’s look at Jim’s case. His foot pain was on the Gallbladder Meridian, which means there was congestion on the meridian. Whenever there’s a congestion in a meridian, you can start with its neuro-lymphatic points.

The neuro-lymphatic points of the Gallbladder Meridian are on the sternum and the gap between ribs. Massaging them helps to clear the toxins out of the Gallbladder Meridian. It’s a simple and easy way to work with a meridian. That’s exactly what I did.

Usually massaging neuro-lymphatic points provides immediate relief to physical pain.

There are of course other ways to alleviate pain. But this is one of the most accessible ways. Sometimes this is all it takes. Other times this is a great first step in managing pain.

My Plan

Please let me know if you find this case study interesting and if you’d like to learn more on how to work with health issues that come up on a regular day.

My plan in 2022 is to establish a system to best support you in maintaining and creating radiant health. I’m working on creating online courses so that you’ll have a centralized place to explore relevant information, with cases studies just like this one.