Acupuncture may be seen by many as a “new age” treatment but really it’s very old. Acupuncture originated in China over three thousand years ago. It has been successful for many years in treating pain but it has not been until the last decade or so that we have really started to understand what acupuncture does from a scientific point of view.
Last September, a paper was published that reviewed the outcomes of 29 acupuncture studies involving almost 18,000 adults. All 29 studies were analyzed for the effects that acupuncture had on headaches, back pain and arthritis. In the end, researchers concluded that acupuncture worked better than usual pain treatment. The results from this study “provide the most robust evidence to date that acupuncture is a reasonable referral option,”*.
So, how does inserting needles into various points of the body relieve pain? To answer that question we must look at two different schools of thought, Eastern versus Western medicine.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, the stimulation of acupuncture points is meant to regulate the flow of Qi in the body and therefore restore health and balance. Qi, is the life force of the body. Western medicine explains that the insertion of acupuncture needles into the body creates minute local tissue damage. This local tissue damage stimulates change in the body’s healing response by releasing chemical mediators to repair the area and endorphins to diminish pain.
No matter what medical ethos the practitioner believes in, the acupuncture treatment itself will be relatively the same. During the treatment several fine sterilized needles will be inserted into different areas of the skin. The needles will be inserted into specific acupuncture points throughout the body as determined by the practitioner. Needles are usually placed close to the area of pain and far away, in order to affect different areas of the nervous system.
If you’re nervous of needles, acupuncture may not be for you. However, if fear of the pain from needles is holding you back from getting treatment you need to know that acupuncture treatments are non-painful and often relaxing. Acupuncture may cause an initial stinging sensation or dull ache when the needle is inserted into the skin. However, this feeling is brief and may or may not be experienced for every point.
For more information on acupuncture and how it may help you or someone you know, please call the office at 1-902-404- 3668 or visit our website, www.choicehealthcentre.com
*Vickers, Andrew, Angel Cronin, Alexandra Maschino, George Lewith, Hugh Macpherson, Nadine Foster, Karen Sherman, Claudia Witt, and Klaus Linde. “Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis..” Archives of Internal Medicine 19.172 (2012): 1-10.JAMA Internal Medicine. Web. 30 Jan. 2013.
By Dr. Kelley McVarish