Acupuncture excels at treating pain whether the pain is chronic or acute. Acute pain conditions, such as injuries, resolve quickly with acupuncture. Not only does acupuncture provide pain relief but it will help an injury heal faster and more completely. Chronic pain conditions can take longer to treat and often require maintenance treatments to maintain relief and effect healing. With alternatives like pain medications and surgery, acupuncture is a viable and often preferable alternative.
Stress has become so prevalent in today’s society and the negative health effects of stress read like a list of “diseases of civilization”. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, hypertension, cirrhosis, metabolic syndrome...the list goes on and on and all can be linked directly or indirectly with stress. Acupuncture can reduce stress markers in the body, induce parasympathetic (rest and digest) activity and even short circuit the patterns that cause adrenal fatigue.
Often, pain and stress can lead to sleep problems, so by addressing these first two issues, sleep is often improved. Working directly on sleep, acupuncture can reset the body so that patients are able to go to sleep quickly with less interruption and wake feeling rested.
The effects of poor digestion are so far reaching that I almost always include some digestive treatments within the treatment plan for patients. Without the proper building blocks, your body simply cannot rebuild and protect itself. If your digestion is off, no matter how well you are eating, those building block may not be properly broken down or absorbed. Hormonal issues, gallbladder disease, mood problems, fatigue and even auto immune problems can often be traced back to poor digestion. Acupuncture can stimulate the digestive system to work properly, eliminating a host of seemingly disparate health complaints.
We are built for anxiety. If our ancient ancestors did not worry about food and shelter, they quite simply did not survive to pass down those lackadaisical genes. So, you can thank your ancestors for giving you the anxiety “gene”, yay! The problem is, modern society has relieved us of many of these survival worries. So, what do we do? Make up problems of course! As noted above, acupuncture can help reduce the bodies reaction to stress and help relive that “wired and tired” syndrome that so many of us get stuck in and these are drivers for anxiety. By inducing the body to produce chemicals such as gabapentin and serotonin, acupuncture can directly relieve anxiety.
Five reasons? There is only one. Your health and wellbeing. Relieving any one of these problems can be life changing and most of the time patients present with some degree of all of these problems. Come in, get help and live a healthier, happier life!