What is Acupuncture?

Acupuncture is a form of traditional medicine practiced in China for thousands of years. Eighty percent of the world's population depends upon traditional medicine rather than the Western medicine with which we in America and Europe are familiar. Acupuncture involves the use of needles and/or moxibustion (the application of heat to acupoints) for the prevention and treatment of disease.

How does acupuncture work?
Chinese medical theory holds that a vital life energy circulates through the human body by way of channels called meridians. When this flow of energy is smooth and unobstructed, good health is the result. If for any reason this flow is blocked, ailments and diseases occur. The function of acupuncture is to restore balance in the body so that vital life energy can flow freely.

What does acupuncture do?
Just as a tune-up keeps an automobile in good running order, acupuncture can maintain health and prevent illness and disability. These were the goals of ancient Oriental medicine. Physicians of the court were paid only as long as their patients stayed well. To this end, they advised their patients not only on proper nutrition and adequate exercise, but also on the importance of their mental attitudes.

In clinical depression, one lacks the usual level of energy (not sick, but definitely not up to par). If allowed to persist, depression can often result in actual illness. When pre-clinical symptoms are properly treated, the onset of illness can often be avoided.

Aging, physical deterioration, and eventual death are inevitable, following the laws of nature. It is possible, however, to prevent early and unnecessary deterioration.

What can we expect of acupuncture?
Acupuncture:

• Regulates and maintains the body's normal physiological functions

• Facilitates the body's adaptability to changes in the environment

• Strengthens the body's immune system, reducing the frequency and severity of conditions that contribute to stress and early deterioration

Is acupuncture painful?
Acupuncture needles are extremely fine and their insertion is often not felt. Some people have more skin sensitivity than others, and some points are more sensitive to treat than others. Most people, however, say the treatments are not at all painful. Once the needles are in place, the patient can expect to feel a dull sensation, a sense of warmth, or sometimes even a slight flow of energy up and down from the point. Deep relaxation during treatment is the most common report of patients.

What aspects of illness can be treated by acupuncture?

Relief of pain
Acupuncture is perhaps best known for its efficacy in relieving pain. Modern medical research attributes this in part to acupuncture's power to increase the body's level of endorphins in the bloodstream. Acupuncture stimulates the body to produce its own morphine-like substance to alleviate pain. Nerve impulses are normalized and balanced because of the interconnection of the acupuncture points and the central nervous systems, thus suppressing pain. To think of acupuncture only in terms of relieving chronic pain is to take too narrow a view of its potential uses and to overlook its success in the treatment of organic and stress-related disorders.

Organic illnesses
Acupuncture can affect any disease or disorder as long as the body is functioning and no organ has been destroyed. Obviously, it cannot heal a broken bone. Modern surgery is indeed a miracle, offering us skin grafts, plastic joints, and artificial valves and limbs when the originals have been irreparably damaged. However, it is difficult for human beings to find spare parts, and even when they are available, the body often rejects them. Acupuncture, on the other hand, works to improve the quality and function of the organs we still have.

Experiential evidence points to acupuncture's ability to alleviate the symptoms common to organic disorders by strengthening the body's natural resistance and its immune systems.

After acupuncture treatment:

• The levels of white blood cells increase.
• The levels of alpha, beta, and gamma globulins increase.
• It is believed that alpha and beta globulins help white blood cells to fight infection. Gamma globulins are associated with the production of immune antibodies.

How many treatments are necessary?
The severity and duration of a given problem affect how long it takes the body's system to be reprogrammed by the treatments. Just as each body is different from day to day, from hour to hour, even from moment to moment, so each patient responds to treatment in his or her own fashion.

In general, treatment is applied either daily or two or three times a week, and then spaced out to once a week, twice a month or even once every three months. The average treatment takes about twenty minutes.

The usual course of treatment is daily for the first five to ten days. Ten treatments constitute a course and may serve as an index of improvement for most diseases. Chronic conditions or special disorders may require more courses.

In cases that will respond, improvement begins to become evident usually after the fifth or sixth, or possibly even as early as the second treatment. On the other hand, you should be aware that it is not unusual after the first or second treatment to feel increased discomfort from the condition being treated. Initial acupuncture treatments increase the sensitivity of the nervous system, but this reaction subsides as treatment continues.

It is normal for recovery times to vary widely. If your body is accustomed to its old habits of chronic systems, a struggle begins, leading to the restoration of balance and freedom from the complaints. Patients are encouraged to persevere in treatment to avoid losing the potential benefits of acupuncture. Harmony, we might add, is restored much more quickly if the problem is treated as early as possible.

Once a patient has been relieved of ailments and the pulse becomes normal, he or she should be seen by the acupuncturist every three to six months for a booster treatment. Following this routine, basic health should remain satisfactory. If an illness should develop in an otherwise healthy patient, it can often be alleviated with relatively few treatments, sometimes with just one.