Here’s a tip: Don’t graph your patient if their hands have spent the last few minutes in water. Allow me to illustrate.
The other day I decided to graph my wife at home. We had just finished cleaning the kitchen and doing dishes, so her hands had been continually wet for about 15 minutes. Take a look at her graph:
Note that all 6 hand meridians read much higher than the foot meridians. This gives the false impression that she has a belt block. Also, the excessive hand meridians increase the mean of the graph, thus making all the foot meridians look deficient when they are actually normal.
Of course, the actual cause of the high hand readings is that the skin has been saturated with moisture and has not yet dried out. Moistened skin is more conductive than dry skin, and so you see the results shown.
Now take a look at her graph a couple of days later. This time, her hands were dry, and the results look much more balanced.
All the foot meridians were indeed normal, and the hand meridians had imbalances at TE, SI and LU. Also note how the deficient HT was disguised by the wet hands in the previous graph.
The take-home point here is to make sure your patient has dry hands and feet before performing the graph exam. If your patient has just washed his or her hands, make sure the hands have been dried thoroughly, and air dried for a few minutes before you do the exam. Similarly, if the feet have been soaking (in wet socks, for example) let them fully dry before you test.
Just a little tip to increase your accuracy.
–Dr. Larsen
Humidity is definitely a factor in testing. Living in the high desert, I always have patients wash and dry their hands and feet before testing. I keep a damp wash cloth at hand and by application/ wiping several times during testing either have them or myself keep a constant level of moisture on the points being tested. I also keep a spray bottle of water at hand and will moisten the ground and wipe it off periodically while reminding the patient to keep a constant firm grip.
Also one must keep a consistent level of moisture on the testing probe. I dip in water and blot on a washcloth after every point measurement or every other point at the most in order to assure constant moisture on the probe.
I think the most important thing is consistency – keeping an appropriate,constant,consistent level of moisture throughout the exam. Any way you can do this will improve your results.
Indeed Dr Larsen,
there may be many factors that can decrease the accuracy of the readings that I have come across in the last few years I have been using it.
1. Heavy skin moisturiser can reduce some readings to almost zero. Some women who typically have graphs with good averages between 90 to 115 will suddenly have difficulty getting a reading over 22! They typically have dry skin and over compensate with thick moisturisers. If these clients see you in the morning get them to come in the afternoon or ask them to moisturise after the session.
2. Sweating! In hot summers or humid days sweat can easily add 30 – 50 points on to are person’s read out. People who are perspiring during at test can have a majority of their reading blow the chart out over 200. I have found asking them to rinse their wrists (for feet sweaters I get them to do their feet) under cold water for 30 – 60 seconds. This will typically hold the sweat at bay until the readings are done. I regularly use a tissue to wipe sweat from the wrists and feet for accurate readings.
3. People who have just come from work and wear long protective clothing in hot and humid conditions. For many of these tests their Qi can be chaotic, very high, and apparently unresponsive to treatment. Then get them in on a day off and WOW – a much more regular looking chart.
4. Re-doing a point within a minute will typically add 20 points to their score, sometimes more. If I need to re-do a score I will wait until the test is complete, then go back a try it again.
I am wondering if your wife’s dishwashing hands had more to do with the heat absorbed by her hands than the fact they were wet (unless of course they were sweating)?
I have a feeling that fasting also makes the graph look very good and really a balanced one. Has anybody tried this? My graph suddenly became good and the PIE also increased after fasting one day. This is just a first observation. I will have to do some work on it.
Hi
let me take a different angle
Maybe it is the washing up liquid, as we all know that the chemicals in the washing up liquid blocks the meridians and the flow become unbalanced
to find out the real situation
I would suggest the following
1. Measure her before the washing up
2. Let her put her hand in claen drinking water for 10 mminutes
3. measure her once agaon
4. wait for 12 hrs then measure her
5. wait for 24 hrs then meansure her
During all this time she should not put any cream or checmical soap on her skin
you will then understand what I say
I have a feeling that fasting also makes the graph look very good and really a balanced one. Has anybody tried this? My graph suddenly became good and the PIE also increased after fasting one day. This is just a first observation. I will have to do some work on it.