Many people ask me what is acupuncture for and what can it treat?
The simple answer is acupuncture is for the treatment of people, and people have many different conditions. Acupuncture was originally designed to keep people healthy when they are already healthy. This is the same principle of not just eating healthy food when you are sick, you eat healthy food all the time to stop you from getting sick!
In essence acupuncture is a way of stimulating the body’s own ability to heal itself.
The body always knows how to heal, but sometimes it needs assistance or to be reminded of what it should be doing. Acupuncture is the painless insertion of tiny needles or pins into specific locations in the body. This has an internal affect, with the principle being that you can influence the interior of the body by accessing points on the outside.
Chinese medicine is not based in science in any respect, the laws of biology and chemistry do not apply in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and it is for this reason an acupuncturist can quite often get results for patients when other forms of medicine, including western medicine, prove ineffective.
A modern trained acupuncturist must still undergo rigorous training in western biological diseases to also have a complete understanding of common conditions like arthritis or high cholesterol etc..
My own experience with Chinese medicine teaches me that acupuncture, especially when combined with nutritional medicine, is particularly effective in the treatment of all inflammatory conditions.
The world health organization ( WHO) has listed the following conditions as proven to be treatable with acupuncture after the completion of clinical trials.
It is worth noting that this is a far from complete list.
- Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
- Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
- Biliary colic
- Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
- Dysentery, acute bacillary
- Dysmenorrhoea, primary
- Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastro spasm)
- Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
- Headache
- Hypertension, essential
- Hypotension, primary
- Induction of labor
- Knee pain
- Leukopenia
- Low back pain
- Malposition of foetus, correction of
- Morning sickness
- Nausea and vomiting
- Neck pain
- Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
- Peri arthritis of shoulder
- Postoperative pain
- Renal colic
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Sciatica
- Sprain
- Stroke
- Tennis elbow