Healing Foot Pain: Warming the Kidney Channel

Posted: January 10, 2015

When foot pain feels like something is inside the foot or like a sock is bunched up under it and is made worse by walking, the diagnosis is often Morton’s neuroma.  This is an enlargement or thickening of nerve tissue that often occurs between the third and fourth toes.  This type of pain is usually relieved by sitting, and sometimes massaging the feet, and is aggravated when activity is resumed.
Moxabustion, the heating of acupuncture points and channels with moxa (typically the dried leaves and stems of the mugwort plant, also known as artemisia vulgaris) can reduce the size and eliminate the pain of a neuroma.  The area treated is near the first acupuncture point on the Kidney channel, named Bubbling Spring.  As with most conditions, beginning treatment early is easier and more effective than waiting until the pain and size of the neuroma are severe.