What Can You Use Acupuncture For?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture is an important facet of the whole healthcare system. Other methods of treatment such as massage and herbal medicine are also included. Given that TCM is an entire theory of healthcare, its treatments are used to treat all illnesses; mental, physical, and emotional. Therefore, acupuncture can be used by a TCM practitioner to help treat practically everything, from depression to fevers. When seeking acupuncture care here in the United States, how liberal the TCM view of health is used will vary widely. Some practitioners use the basic techniques and points of acupuncture and map them onto the Western model of health. They lightly meld the two medical philosophies together. Others will be very strict to TCM diagnosis and treatment. Still others practically reject the TCM model entirely and seek a purely practical understanding to utilizing acupuncture (dry needling for example.)
Therefore, acupuncture is limited only by the personal philosophy of your acupuncturist. The most common application of acupuncture is for local pain and inflammation. Every acupuncturist will treat local pain, and a majority of them will help with other common neurological issues, such as sciatica. Other common applications include treatment for a variety of headaches, infertility, and allergies. As a chiropractor, I use acupuncture to further stimulate healing with whatever condition I am treating. From my experience, I tend to get almost double the amount of improvement when I complement my course of care with acupuncture. This means I can get more done in less visits. Some of the most interesting conditions I’ve used acupuncture for include reversing hearing loss, labor induction, and normalizing bowel movements.
How Does Acupuncture Work?
The theories behind how acupuncture works are as varied as the types of practitioners. The basic western theory is that it stimulates the local nerves in some fashion that produces the desired results. This might be an ok explanation for its ability to decrease local pain, but it does little to account for the results from non-local points, or for the non-pain benefits.
There is a similar theory but has some evidence and broader implications. This theory involves the stimulation of white blood cells when the skin is pierced by the acupuncture needles. There is a marked increase in white blood cell production when acupuncture is performed, which would account for some of the antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and pain dampening benefits. However, again it doesn’t account for non-pain benefits.
In my opinion, the two best theories of how acupuncture works are the traditional explanation, and a more recent re-interpretation of the traditional explanation. The traditional explanation is that there are channels that direct the body's energy (Qi or Chi), and these channels have specific points along them that stimulate the energy and produce specific benefits.
These energy channels loosely correspond to organ systems and/or bodily functions and therefore, many of the points' specific purposes can be derived from their channel. Other uses for specific points have come from trial and error through literally thousands of years of usage.
The re-interpretation of this explanation uses the same concept of energy channels, but attributes the energy to the body’s natural electromagnetic field. This field is how we are able to take EKG and EEG scans of the heart and brain respectively. In the electromagnetic theory of acupuncture, the acupuncture points lie along natural channels of the body’s field. By adding stimulation via needles to these points, the field is in some way altered or energized that produces the specific effects desired.
Each practitioner's thoughts on how acupuncture works will influence how they perform their acupuncture. Other variations in practice come from regional stylistic differences.. While all acupuncture originates from China, unique adaptations come from Japan and Korea. Japanese style is gentler, shallower, and relies heavily on diagnosis via the various pulses of the body. Korean acupuncture is sometimes called 4 needle acupuncture because of the emphasis on less being more, usually resulting in only 4 needles being placed at a time. Korean diagnosis relies more heavily on the observation of the patient constitution. Chinese style has no such restrictions in practice. Often dozens of points are needled, and some needles are placed very deep into the body. Sometimes a Chinese style practitioner may add a manual twisting and pressing in and out of the needles to provide even further stimulation.
What Results Should I Expect From Acupuncture?
The results of acupuncture for pain are so conclusive that it is now widely used in hospitals and clinics around the world. In my own experience, I see patient results on a spectrum. About 1 in 5 patients have a very small response to acupuncture care. But for the remaining 4 out of 5 people they have a very positive and strong corollary reaction. So to answer the question, you should expect pretty good results.
One of my favorite things about acupuncture is that I’ve seen it first hand disprove its results as placebo effect. I personally didn’t believe acupuncture did anything real until I had it done on myself.
One of my favorite stories to tell comes from when I was an assistant to my hometown chiropractor, Dr. Carlson. Dr. Carlson grew up on a farm in the local community, and as such he knew and grew up with many of the older farmers still working. These are the most salt-of-the-earth people you’d ever meet, and if they ever came in (or more commonly were dragged in by their wives) you knew whatever they were dealing with was pretty serious. One day one of these men came in, with his wife practically pushing him through the door.
The man knew Dr. Carlson personally but hated to admit he had any issues with pain. Slowly but surely Dr. Carlson talked the man out of his tough exterior and got to the root of the problem. To help treat it, Dr. Carlson told the man he wanted to do acupuncture. The farmer flatly refused and told the Doctor that he didn’t believe in “any of that hookey Chinese non-sense.” Dr. Carlson laughed but sternly told him that he was getting acupuncture done, and he wasn’t going to let him leave till they did. The farmer realized that between his wife and Dr. Carlson, this wasn’t a battle he would win, and so begrudgingly relented. The treatment was performed and the farmer walked out, decidedly straighter and in a noticeably better mood. A few days later the farmer returned, and when he got into the Doctor's office, he leaned towards Dr. Carlson and quietly said, “Do you think I can get some more of them needles done to me today? I haven’t felt that kind of relief in a long time.”
I have gone from having no faith in acupuncture to dedicating a significant portion of the past year to better learn and get certified to use it. There are truly some things out there that we can’t fully explain, but still can have huge positive impacts on us. Acupuncture is one of those things, and I wish everyone had access to a good practitioner to utilize it.
Comentarios