How to Recover From Retinal Hemorrhage or Detachment

Image of an eye. Jordan Whitfield/Unsplash

Fundus hemorrhage, a condition also known as retinal hemorrhage, is where the blood vessels on the retina burst and bleed. When this condition takes place, there’s no visible abnormality on the outside. Although retinal hemorrhage isn’t likely to induce pain, it can impair a patient’s vision and cause visual field deficits. In extreme cases, a retinal hemorrhage can even lead to loss of vision.

Oftentimes, retinal hemorrhage comes quickly and requires swift treatment, which is why Dr. Gwo-Bin Wu, director of Xinyitang Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic, came up with a unique fix for this problem. According to him, this method can also help heal retinal detachment, macular degeneration, and other kinds of eye-related conditions, or it can be used just for eye maintenance in general.

What Causes Fundus Hemorrhage? How Do You Treat It?

Retinal hemorrhage is an emergency and usually caused by high blood pressure. When too much blood shoots up at once, the blood vessels beneath the eyes can burst and cause bleeding. Another cause may be injuries resulting from accidents.

If you go to the hospital, they’d inject your eye multiple times with medicine to dissolve the blood clots in the eye fundus.

Yet in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), there’s a special cure for this condition, which is to release blood from your ears. This may come as a surprise.

In fact, this method was invented by an auricular specialist, Professor Lichun Huang, and it has proven successful in many patients.

Taiwanese TCM Doctor Cured After Using this Method Twice

Dr. Wu had attended Huang’s lectures in the past. During class, there was a TCM doctor who was always wearing an eye patch. The professor found it quite odd, so the doctor explained that he was suffering from fundus hemorrhage, which had reduced his field of vision.

The professor later asked the teaching assistant to help the doctor release some blood from his ears and put some ear press seeds on his ears’ acupressure points. Oneweek later, she did a second bloodletting, and the doctor became completely healed. This surprised Dr. Wu quite a bit.

Cases like this were quite common with Professor Huang. Another TA also shared his own experiences with the students: One day, the TA’s father suddenly lost his vision, likely due to an ocular stroke caused by fundus hemorrhage. The TA suddenly thought of Prof. Huang’s method, and so released blood from his father’s ears every day for a week. He was then completely healed.

Bloodletting From Ears to Cure Retinal Hemorrhage

Here are the specific steps of this method:

1. Before bloodletting, massage the ear until it is engorged with blood.
2. Use the tip of the ear as the central point, and find 2 spots on its left and right sides (a total of 5 spots).
3. Use an injection needle to prick these 5 spots.
4. Gently stretch and squeeze the ear to facilitate the bloodletting.
5. Soak up some cotton balls in alcohol to wipe the blood from the ear, as alcohol can prolong the time it takes for blood to coagulate, which can make the ear continue to bleed. Once 3 or 4 cotton balls become full of blood, the bleeding can be stopped.

Repeat steps 1-5 to release blood from the side of the ear. First, find the Lunsi acupuncture point, then use it as a reference point to find 2 spots on its left and right sides (a total of 5 spots). Then prick these 5 spots with the injection needle to release blood.

Some people may worry if one would lose too much blood this way, but 3 to 4 cotton balls’ worth of blood is nothing, so there’s no need to worry. However, people who have anemia need to be especially careful when using this method.

According to Dr. Wu’s clinical experiences, after the first bloodletting session, a patient can regain about one third of his or her blocked field of vision; after the second session, the patient has a chance to regain half of his or her field of vision; and after 10 sessions, the patient can regain roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of his or her vision.

In addition to retinal hemorrhage, bloodletting from the ears can also be used to treat other eye-related diseases, such as retinal detachment and macular degeneration. And it’s also an effective method to maintain the eyes’ health.

However, Dr. Wu recommends visiting an authorized practitioner of TCM to help you with the method, instead of doing it yourself.

Why Does This Method Work?

You might wonder why bloodletting works in this case. The logic is very simple: bloodletting promotes the flow of blood and qi (i.e. vital energy).

Your ears are quite close to your eyes, and if you could extend them into your head, they’d land right under your eyes. The blood and energy in the human body are all interconnected, so releasing blood from your ears can open up some channels that get the clotted blood under your eye to start moving again and initiate the repair process. This is like making a hole on a dam to release blocked lake water.

This method can’t be explained through modern medicine/science, and you have every right to call it unorthodox or even medieval. Regardless, Dr. Wu thinks what’s important is the results of this method.