5 Ways Acupuncture Can Save You Time

When people call me with questions about acupuncture, they usually ask me how much it costs. They ask me if I can really help them with their most pertinent health issues. They ask me if the needles hurt. However, I have found that these issues are not the biggest barriers to getting acupuncture treatment.

The biggest, most secret barrier is time.

So I'm here to help you answer the question amid your busy life, your kids, your job, your family, and your other healthcare options: Do you have time for acupuncture?

An acupuncture session lasts approximately 60-90 minutes. For those of us with busy lifestyles, that's a long time to sit still. Plus, you have a good amount of that time to yourself, listening to soft music or being in silence.

Can I really sit still by myself
for that long?

I occasionally have clients who are so nervous about the still/silent component that they request other activities during acupuncture. They would like to read. They would like to listen to the spoken word. They want me to talk to them, maybe to tell them exactly how they will get better. These are all cries for help from a brain that doesn't want to settle down.

Acupuncture sessions can
refresh you and improve
the quality of your sleep.

Here's why I encourage all my patients to dive in to the silent time of their acupuncture treatment.

1. You would normally have to take a four-hour nap in order to get the refreshment of one session. (Most people rarely sleep during a session, by the way.) "I felt like I slept for several hours," is a common reaction that my patients have after getting off the table.
2. You will sleep better regularly with these shortened "training" sessions, saving you hours of frustration in the night. This is especially true if you have racing thoughts or trouble turning off your mind at bedtime.
3. You will not find a better opportunity to reset your brain and re-sync with your body. Your thinking and your emotions will be clearer and more defined - thus saving you from hours or even days of frantic or confused behavior.
4. Because acupuncture stops pain and prevents future illness, you could save hours in the doctor's waiting room. Many of my patients report that while they continue to see their primary care physician, their visits are fewer because their symptoms are fewer.



Fewer symptoms means less time in waiting rooms!

5. Acupuncture sessions steer your body in the right direction without high risk or side-effects. By investing 60-90 minutes every week or two, you can decrease your dependence on medications that make you loopy or nauseated. You can avoid that surgery that would take weeks or months of recovery.

Acupuncture sessions offer you less time feeling stressed, poorly rested, and cooped up, and more time doing what you would rather be doing: spending time with your friends, enjoying your favorite hobby, staying caught up at work, and caring for your family.

There's never been a better time to try acupuncture, or to come in for a follow-up. Contact me at Lakes Area Acupuncture and let me save you some time and trouble.

The Science of Acupuncture: Overview

Acupuncture balances the health of the whole body while it stops pain, boosts metabolism, and eases stress. Instead of wondering if acupuncture works, scientists have been scratching their heads and performing studies to figure out how it works. They managed to develop six different theories that, combined, provide some light into the mystery of acupuncture.

Acupuncture....

• Augments Immunity
• Releases Endorphins
• Improves Circulation
• Controls Nerve Gateways
• Balances Neurotransmitter Levels

Chinese medicine can view
disconnected symptoms
as related to one another

In the United States, we have specialists that bring to my mind the expression “the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.” If I had carpal tunnel in my right wrist and arthritis in my left, for each wrist I might end up seeing two specialists that never speak to each other! Many people have trouble understanding acupuncture in the West because one treatment can work with so many systems at the same time. I am thankful that TCM has one-to-many correspondences, since we are able to treat multiple conditions with just a few needles.

Felix Mann aptly described acupuncture
point selections as "constellations."

With all the acupuncture points on the body, mapping their individual functions would take longer than mapping the human genome. Luckily you don't have to know what points you wish to receive before you go to the acupuncturist! Every point on the body has its own potential effects; the skill of your practitioner will determine where and how these effects are used to your benefit.

Acupuncture stimulates and regulates your body's natural response, creating improvement with no side effects. Every day, your body is fighting for its life and well-being, overwhelmed by stress and repetitive strain. Acupuncture stimulates your brain to reset and rewire the patterns of your natural functions. This is the same for every patient; the differences lie in the details and nature of the condition addressed.

Nerve Gate Control with Acupuncture

"It is better to wound yourself a thousand times
than to do a single harm to another person."
-  Dr. Li Chang-yuan,
interviewed by James Reston in 1972

One of my patients was suffering from a toothache on top of her other ailments. She had a procedure that fixed her tooth problem, but her head was still aching.

I remembered that acupuncture can be used to bypass the nerves along specific pathways to stop her pain. During her treatment, I applied electricity to the acupuncture needles I had inserted for her toothache. Her pain immediately resolved, and she asked if my services would be available during her next dental procedure.

I was able to stop her pain so quickly because of the first powerful effect of acupuncture to catch the attention of the West.

A little history

Adding electrical stimulation to acupuncture points
interrupts the signal of pain in nerve gate pathways.

For many years, acupuncture in the United States remained an obscure, mysterious healing art. In 1972, a journalist named James Reston visited China on a mission of cultural enlightenment. While he had not planned on covering acupuncture specifically, Mr. Reston experienced Traditional Chinese Medicine first-hand when his journey was interrupted by an emergency appendectomy.

Amazed by his experiences in China, he returned to the US to be one of the first journalists to provide accounts of his acupuncture treatment and his observation of treatments performed by clinicians abroad. (If you'd like to read the original article, here's a free reprint.)

This diagram is linked to an article
on pain management using acupuncture.

Acupuncture is commonly used for analgesia in China, whether as a primary or secondary means of stopping pain during surgery. In some cases, acupuncture has been used as the only analgesic.

To explain how acupuncture stops pain, scientists introduced Gate Control Theory, which states that signals, which travel from the site of pain to the brain through high-traffic gates, can be moderated by influencing stimulation in corresponding tissues, such as with acupuncture. These gates can be overwhelmed by the acupuncture stimulation, and the result is no sensation of pain.

There are no drugs or other substances within the acupuncture needle; in order to achieve this powerful effect, the needles can be used alone or with added electrical stimulation.

Many amazed onlookers in the West have witnessed surgeries where the patient was awake and alert, their pain modulated by acupuncture. This is not a common practice in the West, yet it is a useful opportunity for patients who do not have the option of receiving anesthetic medications. It serves for the rest of us as a powerful example of how acupuncture stops pain.

Acupuncture Increases Circulation

Acu-points influence circulation by affecting
hormones like histamine to dilate and constrict
blood vessels in the affected area.

Specific hormones work together to govern blood flow in the body, but there is no single hormone that modulates circulation.

A familiar hormone may help us understand the relationship between circulation and acupuncture. Many of us seek to block histamine in our respiratory systems; we use anti-histamines to cause the blood vessels to constrict so we don't feel swollen and snotty with allergies. Histamine can be very useful in combination to relax vessels and push the blood flow to an area.

Chinese medical concepts
may seem esoteric, but
they produce real, metabolic
results.

As blood reaches the site we are stimulating with acupuncture, it carries immune components, endorphins, and other beneficial compounds like vitamins, fats, and blood constituents. Once we have created the proper building blocks for healing, acupuncture directs the blood flow to the parts of the body where it is most needed, improving the circulation of the entire body. Sometimes, a specific area is involved – for example, the back, knee, and neck are all areas where the blood flow has commonly been reduced to a trickle. And one can feel it, whether as a direct source of pain or through indirect means, like edema (swelling), numbness, or tingling.
Often in response to poor circulation, it's easy to further decrease that circulation by applying ice, consuming numbing medications, or using compression socks. Unfortunately, this begins the process of removing circulation from the extremities, killing the nerves and causing muscle atrophy from mis- or dis-use.

As a licensed acupuncturist, I highly recommend stimulating the circulation to painful, numb, and swollen areas with acupuncture and the complimentary aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine before seeking more drastic means to inhibit these symptoms. Reducing circulation creates a great deal of side effects which can be irreversible, while acupuncture poses minimal risks in comparison.

When structural problems interfere with
circulation, we can use acupuncture to
direct blood flow where it's needed.

One of my patients experienced severe tennis elbow, and he was instructed that he could only receive cortisone shots, pain medications, and surgery for his condition. During his first visit, I could quickly see that his elbow pain was related to severe circulation problems in his spine, specifically referring from his neck. I informed him that I would need to address both his neck and his elbow in order to reduce the pain. Additionally, because his neck had bone spurs, I could only affect his circulation around these structural conditions.

The patient had substantial relief after the first session, which became exponential as his treatment plan progressed. While I could not change the shape of his neck, I increased the circulation within and reduced his inflammation by positively influencing blood flow in his neck, thus stopping the elbow pain.

Read more about the mechanisms of acupuncture in this excerpt from the American Journal of Acupuncture.

Acupuncture Releases Endorphins

Endorphins are released while
running from monsters

Athletes and exercise enthusiasts are well familiar with the function of endorphins. Once an athlete reaches an exhaustion level, they experience a feeling that some have dubbed, “runner's high.” This could apply to any physical exercise. This euphoric, whole-body feeling comes from endorphins, which are released in order to allow the body to endure longer periods of strenuous activity than normal. In the prehistoric human body, endorphins were developed for long periods of flight from large, powerful predators, enabling humans to survive hazardous over-exertion by stopping pain associated with over-extended tissues and organ systems.

Endorphins are released when
eating spicy foods

Pain killers represent the most popular group of drugs on the market. From headaches to knee pain, everyone is looking for a solution to their pain. Multi-million dollar clinics are opening under the title “Pain Management.” While these solutions (namely drugs and surgery) help to manage pain, acupuncture stops it completely. Long-term studies detailing the results of acupuncture treatment for pain showed significant improvement in patients who completed their treatment plan, even years after their last acupuncture treatment. (Here's an example.)

Endorphins are released
in response to pain

Acupuncture is able to stop pain better than most drugs because of the body's natural endorphins. Acupuncture unlocks a dormant quality within the body, which, when activated, operates at a strength ten times any drug on the market. For example, researchers at UNC are using acupuncture instead of spinal injection to increase the effectiveness of a new drug. Unlike more publicized options, acupuncture is safe and causes no side effects.

The effects of acupuncture on pain are immediate. A patient called me in significant pain from a sprained wrist. I quickly applied acupuncture and asked him to rotate his wrist at the end of the treatment. His expression brightened and his eyes became wider as he was able to not only move his wrist without pain, but also with a significantly larger range than when he had first strained it just a few hours earlier. I continued to apply acupuncture and added an herbal compress to increase his circulation and heal the wrist completely, but acupuncture brought him immediate relief from pain that he did not hope to expect.

A Pain Relief Story

I recently treated a woman for neck pain who was unable to turn her head to the right or left. She was in a great deal of pain, and it was affecting her ability to live her life.

After speaking with her in detail about her current state of health, I used acupuncture to stop her pain, reduce her tension, and give her more mobility in her neck. She made some dietary changes because we found that she was not getting enough proper nourishment. I added herbs to improve the circulation throughout her whole body, as well as stimulate her digestion to facilitate the delivery of important nutrients to the tissues in her neck and shoulders.

We also covered some exercises that she could apply to reduce the strain on her neck and upper back. After the first treatment, her pain level reduced to zero, and she was able to enjoy her full range of motion. The steps we took from her first treatment gave her long lasting relief and prevented the injury from recurring.

This patient was able to move from immobilizing pain and tightness into relief and relaxation because we explored the totality of what Traditional Chinese Medicine has to offer, including and beyond acupuncture. In my commitment to assess her as a person and not just a disease, I was able to identify the source of her pain, rather than just treat her symptoms repeatedly.

If you have pain that keeps returning no matter what you do, the source of that pain needs immediate attention. I am available to answer your questions so that you know what to expect when starting your recovery with acupuncture.

When to Get Acupuncture

Based on clinical experience, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that acupuncture is a beneficial treatment for the following conditions.

Similar to the dashboard on your car, which lights up when it needs special attention or maintenance, this list is the dashboard of your body. If you have symptoms that correspond with the following conditions, it is a good indication that you need to see an acupuncturist. To contact me for an appointment, see here.

Acupuncture is effective with:
Stress	Digestive	Respiratory	Pain	Women’s Health
Emotional Distress	Nausea	Asthma	Joint Pain	Infertility
Depression	Vomiting	Sore Throat	Bone Pain	PMS
Anxiety	GERDs	Cold/Flu	Nerve Pain	Menstrual Disorders
Insomnia	Gastritis	Headaches	Dental Pain	Menopause
Smoking Cessation	Diarrhea	Pneumonia	Cancer Pain	UTI's
Addictions	Constipation	Tonsillitis	Sciatica	Incontinence
Dizziness	IBS	Sinusitis	Arthritis	Endometriosis
Fatigue	Colitis	Rhinitis	Tennis Elbow	Uterine Bleeding
Weight Management	Chron's Disease	Allergies	Headaches
	Hiccups	Ear Infections	TMJ
	Morning Sickness	Bronchitis	Chronic Fatigue
			Fibromyalgia
			Peripheral Neuropathy

Don't Fear the Needle

A needle is no wider than this cat's whiskers!

Many patients experience no pain during treatment. If sensitivity to needles is such that you experience pain, a skilled practitioner can adjust the treatment to make you more comfortable. Acupuncture needles vary in size, but all of them are solid, single-use, and no larger than a cat whisker.

Fear of needles is the primary reason that people put off getting treatment with acupuncture. In most cases, the patient is pleasantly surprised to find that the needles are hardly felt at all. Occasionally one may feel a slight pricking or tingling sensation, followed by a sensation of numbness, heaviness or warmth.

If you have a deep aversion to using needles, additional therapies and herbs can assist in the success of your treatment.

Acupuncture according to Chinese Medicine

Acupuncture restores normal functioning of the body by stimulating points.

The body is covered with points that can be needled or otherwise stimulated by an acupuncturist. Pathways called meridians, which help to connect each part of the body to the whole, connect points, so that one point can have effects on multiple parts of the body. For example, an acupuncturist might needle points on the ankle, wrist, or hand to relieve neck pain.

Acupuncture points can regulate the Qi (energy) of internal organs to resolve internal problems, or of a local area (the elbow, for example) to relieve pain.

The word Qi refers to both a substance of energy in the body and the functionality of organs. Regulating the Qi of an organ refers to restoring its functionality to benefit all internal organs. In a local area, the mechanism of acupuncture often refers to pain relief.

Appropriate Acupuncture

I saw that acupuncture was mentioned in a local news broadcast about allergies. Based on the article and comments, I am inspired to continue educating the public; I feel that is my task as a health care professional.

Acupuncture produces both specific and general beneficial, detectable effects on the body. Not only is it extremely effective when combined with whole herbs and/or pharmaceuticals (because who said doing acupuncture meant giving up your current means of relief?), it also produces changes in the brain that can be detected with fMRI - here's a study done at NIH.

This study provides information on how acupuncture regulates pain, but how about allergies? First we can think of the mechanisms of allergy drugs, like antihistamines, steroids, etc. They inhibit immune receptors that are overactive during an allergy attack. However, this is a non-specific effect, meaning that it is likely to leave the immune system vulnerable to actual pathogens or to cause side-effects.

Ask your doctor how your body maintains the proper amount of histamine receptors, and he or she will probably tell you a variety of things: genetics, metabolism, endocrine activity... But the truth is that this way of looking at medicine can only examine the infinite detail as it is categorized, further separating the right arm from the left arm. This article from Time in 1992 reveals that both our approach to education and our infatuation with neo-technology have led medical care into a fragmented state that further distances the public from seeking help without significant trauma to both mental and financial (and sometimes even physical) states.

Acupuncturists are provided with extensive medical training on assessment, pediatrics, and most importantly, referral. Physicians are tired of doling out drugs for routine family issues; they want to be where they're needed. This works perfectly with acupuncture, which can happily manage fibromyalgia, IBS, and depression, but certainly doesn't set broken bones or manage physical obstructions.

Many younger physicians are somewhat familiar with and open to acupuncture, as it is included in their complementary alternative medicine (CAM) module of study. More allopathic doctors have a basic understanding of Chinese medicine principles as well as familiarity with the extent of the acupuncturist's biomedical education. (here's the module where I graduated)