There are many advocates of acupuncture who claim that this technique not only relieves sciatica nerve pain, but it can help relieve the pain experienced by people who have rheumatoid arthritis. However, the question remains if people should resort to this. So, before deciding anything, let’s first define rheumatoid arthritis and acupuncture.
What is Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Rheumatoid arthritis is the common form of inflammatory arthritis. This medical condition can be identified by how it limits the function and movement of the extremities, particularly the legs, and causes damage to the bones and cartilage. For those who experience rheumatoid arthritis they usually complain of stiffness, pain and swelling in the affected area.
What is Acupuncture?
Even though medical experts question the effectiveness of Acupuncture in treating many medical conditions, it has a lot of potential in providing relief for arthritis pain and has been used by many people in Western countries for the past three decades.
With over 2,000 pre-defined pressure points throughout the human body, the acupuncturist basically inserts thin needles into the skin to access these pressure points. Practitioners of Acupuncture believe that Qi or “life force” flows through the human body. When the Qi flow is blocked or not free flowing in particular parts of the body, we start experiencing medical conditions. By inserting needles, the Qi is restored, thus making the body become harmonized, pain-free and healthy again.
There have been countless experiments done to prove the effectiveness of Acupuncture. In one experiment for example, rheumatoid arthritis patients were gathered into three groups. The first group was treated using electro-acupuncture (needles connected to low electric currents), the second group was treated using traditional acupuncture and the third group served as the placebo group.
Researchers found that the traditional acupuncture patients experienced decrease of swelling, stiffness and pain at a diminishing rate. Those from the electro-acupuncture group experienced reduction of swelling in tender joints, as well as decrease of stiffness and pain. These positive results made experts conclude that rheumatoid arthritis patients could continue with their medical treatment, while combining it with acupuncture; or use this ancient Chinese Medicine technique if they wanted a drug-free pain reliever.