Pulse Diagnosis: A Deep Dive into Your Health Past, Present and Potential Future

I know people like mysteries, but being in the midst of a medical mystery is generally no fun at all.

If you’re trying to solve one, it probably means you or someone you love is suffering and time is of the essence. So Ross and I meet a lot of very frustrated people, who have taken all of the tests and tried every protocol.

Chasing symptoms using MRIs, blood tests and other conventional diagnostic tools - which often serve as mere snapshots of an evolving health picture - can leave people depleted of both valuable resources and hope.

If you’ve been down this road, you may feel like giving up. But our bodies hold history, wisdom and incredible healing potential and we all have the ability to “tune in”. Our ancestors were able to gain access to this information by applying ancient diagnostic tools we can still use today.

One of these powerful tools is pulse diagnosis, which can serve as a deep dive into your health history and how it relates to your current health picture. A comprehensive pulse exam provides an opportunity for patients to review and understand their own health story. Ideally, pulse diagnosis becomes part of a healing dynamic - rooted in communication, resonance and introspection – that empowers patients to reclaim their health stories and write new, healing chapters.

The pulse on your radial artery can reveal everything from your constitutional strengths and weaknesses (what you were born with), to the impacts of your lifestyle habits, past traumas (including those experienced in utero or at birth), and your mental/emotional state. It can also show us the pathology that may be quietly brewing beneath the surface before major signs and symptoms surface.

In addition to offering important clues about the origins of disease, these revelations provide insight into treatment options and a way of monitoring progress systemically.

“Pulse diagnosis gives the practitioner a measurable baseline for normal function. It is a sensitive diagnostic tool that enables one to perceive deviation from normal physiology almost from its inception. The pulse exhibits changes prior to the onset of overt symptoms, allowing valuable time for intervention before the disease process reaches an advanced state. Pulse diagnosis is a valuable tool for preventive medicine.

The pulse reveals the “terrain” (body-mind condition), including vulnerabilities that precede disease. Identifying the vulnerabilities that challenge a patient is an important step in understanding the etiology of any condition. The pulse is also useful in discerning threatening conditions, such as an impending stroke.

The pulse is a relatively objective finding. It can provide the practitioner with information that a patient is unwilling or unable to report. Often such findings significantly influence diagnosis and treatment.

Finally, the pulse provides an exquisitely sensitive and reliable assessment of the mental and emotional state of the patient. One can bypass the usual resistance surrounding habitual patterns of thought and behavior that influence the patient’s condition.”

(Contemporary Chinese Pulse Diagnosis Student Handbook, Dragon Rises Seminars)

In Contemporary Chinese Pulse Diagnosis there are 6 principal positions, 22 complementary positions and about 90 different pulse qualities that can provide an extraordinary amount of information about your health history, current health picture and where things are headed.

For example, a Tense-Tight and Hollow pulse quality could warn of an imminent stroke while a Muffled quality indicates a stagnation of resources that could indicate anything ranging from depression to a breakdown of cellular function and neoplastic activity. Addressing this finding early could prevent cancers down the line.

A Choppy quality, which has become increasingly common since the arrival of COVID and COVID shots, is associated with blood stagnation and toxicity. Choppy pulses can often be attributed to environmental and chemical toxins. Interestingly, the Choppy pulse has a “spikey” quality that mirrors the nature of the spike protein that has been famously linked to coagulopathies.

A Ropy pulse points to inflammation in the circulatory system and hardening of the arteries (arteriosclerosis) accompanied by increased blood viscosity and hypertension.

A Window of Opportunity

What can we do with all of this information? A LOT!

For example, Muffled pulses have turned up in patients who have seemingly benign health issues. Practitioners then have opportunities to incorporate those findings into treatment plans. And patients similarly have opportunities to make dietary and lifestyle adjustments that can prevent the onset of cancers and other pathology down the line.

The beauty of pulse diagnosis lies in the ability to trace pathology back to its origins and the opportunity to use this information to inform a route back to health. It can help you understand why the protocol or supplement that worked so well for so many others isn’t working for you, or why you respond poorly to various diets and forms of exercise. It can also provide clues about what changes you can make going forward.

You can learn more about the pulse and the ways that various traumas reveal themselves in Ross’s interview with Michael Gaeta here.

If you’re a practitioner and you want to learn more about diving deeper into a dynamic healing process with your patients, Ross will be teaching a 4-day course in one of my favorite healing settings in April. You can find details here.

Don’t be fooled by the “miracles of science”… or despair over its limitations. Nature is the originator of these miracles and our healing potential is vast. It is often the hubris of science that stands between us and healing. I won’t pretend to have all the answers…I haven’t even thought of all the questions yet. But I do know there’s more. We’ve only just begun to tap into the wisdom of our own bodies.

Meanwhile, this is no time to stop listening to what our hearts are trying to tell us.