John Power:
Well, I meant pain in the wrist joints. It is a difficulty with translation from my own language to english, in dutch there is just one word and in all the cases it means the same, but in english this is different.
Anyway, I didn't grip his wrist tight on purpose, but I wanted to touch his whole wrist with my hand. Next time I will pay attention on this.
The outcome was that his wrist felt warm. The next day in the morning the pangs in his wrists were gone. But we have to wait because one day it goes better than other days and this could just be a good day.
My experience is that a good outcome will be immediately apparent. But you're right to wait to see whether the improvement will last. If for example the symptoms were typically present 3 days out of every week, then a week without any symptoms would be fairly indicative that something has changed.
I meant to say earlier that the patient needs to be energetically "open" to you. People open to you in direct proportion to how relaxed, happy and present you are. Meditation can't make you happy, but it can create presence. Happiness comes from receiving attention from others (ie. relationships, friendships).