Facts about acupuncture are hard to come by. When searching for facts about acupuncture you may need to cull from many different sources to find information. There are actually 6 facts about acupuncture that you should know about. These facts about acupuncture will help you orient yourself when going into an acupuncture office, like when residents of Ridgewood and Bergen county do, when they call me for acupuncture.
Facts About Acupuncture #1 Acupuncturists Need to Evaluate You Just Like Every Other Practitioner
Let’s say you are having a pain condition, say a shoulder pain in your right shoulder. We would first do an evaluation to see where you are and where you want to go. So doing range of motion tests, feeling for trigger points, doing orthopedic testing, finding out what worsens it and what makes it better are all things we need to know. Like a school test, we want to “grade” where you are now, before “class”, so we can see how your doing and measure your progress better. So don’t worry, an acupuncturist, worth his or her salt, will evaluate your body first. Then explain to you what is wrong and make recommendations.
Facts About Acupuncture #2 Acupuncture can treat other conditions besides pain
Many people are NOT aware that acupuncture can be used to help improve the FAD! FAD is a short hand for F=Fatigue, A=Anxiety and D=Depression. These three plus insomnia are conditions that unfortunately, so many people are suffering with. Many people, who come in to see me, come in because there is some awareness for using acupuncture for pain, but when they see how thorough the exam is, or how well you are treating the pain, or even how relaxed they can feel after a session, they may ask me about these things. Many are discovering how acupuncture and Chinese medicine can help you with the fatigue, depression, and anxiety that affects almost everyone in today’s fast paced, multi-tasking, demanding society
Facts About Acupuncture #3: Acupuncture Needles Don’t Make You Scream?
Acupuncture needles are probably the main reason why people don’t try acupuncture. Many people are afraid of needles. But it is refreshing to know that not ALL needles are made the same! Acupuncture needles are the smallest needles on the planet and have nothing injected through them. Somewhere between a cat’s whisker and less than a sewing needle, acupuncture needles are disposable needles that are inserted into the skin with minimal pain. The trick is to get beneath the skin quickly, and to bypass the pain receptors located just on the surface of the skin. Once in, you can feel numbness, distention, tingling, but no pain. If there is pain, the needle depth needs to be adjusted so it is not hurting any of the nerves. Most people breathe a sigh of relief when they feel how easy it is. It is certainly not like any medical procedure involving needles would feel like because of the small size of the needles!
Facts About Acupuncture #4: How does acupuncture work if there is no medication in the needles?
Acupuncture needles tap into the nerves through the nervous system, the blood flow through the circulatory system so it can affect muscles, tissues, joints, and organs. So if you have pain and you increase blood flow to the painful area, like the shoulder, then you bring the body’s repair cells, the body’s own anti-inflammatory substances that it makes on its own to repair the painful spot and it shuts down the pain loop that is transmitting pain signals to the injured or painful site. Acupuncture helps regulate the heart, strengthening the immune system, stimulating the relaxation response to soothe the “savage beast” that perpetuates the chronic merry-go-round states of anxiety, depression, fatigue and insomnia.
Then the way you place the needles creates a specific pattern in the body, sort of like introducing a program into a computer, to make the body change towards the goal you are working on – get out of pain, feel more energy, feel less stressed.
Facts About Acupuncture #5: Acupuncturist Have Different Ways of Evaluating You
Acupuncturists look at the body in a different way. They want to see where you have poor blood flow and which organ systems are too hyperactive and which organs are too weak. All symptoms can be traced back to a non-functional organ system. So treating the symptoms is one thing, but to find out a little more, they take a peek and look under your body’s “hood”, like a mechanic repairing a car problem would do, to find out what’s broke and need fixing.
Many of these time honored ways, are old school and have been updated to take into account modern conditions that we see in the modern world.
Pulse diagnosis, is where you feel the wrist on the radial artery and it is one way we can detect imbalances in the body. Trained practitioners can tell all sorts of things from the state of your organs by the shape and jump of the pulse. They can tell if you have a sinus infection or allergy if you are tired, frustrated, if your immunity is weak, if you have chronic lower back pain, if you are having a hormonal problem, if you are suffering from severe neck or lower back pain. See, it all boils down to the abnormal shapes or jumps of the pulse and in which positions these sensations are felt. It also depends on the size of your pulse. Big forceful or weak or totally absent. All these signs mean something and can be traced back to the symptoms you are suffering with.
This is just one method of looking at your body, and assessing what’s not working. The key word here is FUNCTIONING. You may not have a heart attack now, but an under functioning heart can cause anxiety, depression, insomnia, negativity etc. So it is important to nip the poor functioning heart in the bud before it gets worse (note I did not say disease because it is not a diseased organ yet, just a poorly functioning one).
Facts About Acupuncture #6: Treatments need to be consistent to get the results you are looking for!
Many people compare acupuncture to drugs and medications. But this is a wrong comparison. When you stick a stimulus in your body with the acupuncture, you need to do it regularly enough to make the change you are looking for. Chinese herbs can really boost this effect as well. The key to life, weight loss, exercising and YES, acupuncture, is simply consistency. Depending on what you want to get fixed, will depend on the number of visits you would need. Treatment frequency and number of visits, is a very tailored and individualized depending on the severity of the condition, the relative health of the patient, and the things they do in their life that aggravate their symptoms.
A person who wants help with a sprain will need very few treatments to get a result compared to someone who wants help with their feelings of anxiety or depression. The key here is lasting change. To get that tipping point, we need to train your body to get better. That requires some level of consistency. After your first visit or after a trial run, the acupuncturist can estimate the visits and the frequency needed.
So I hope this helps orient you in your journey in the realm of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. My patients come from all sectors of life, stay at home mom and dads, business and investors, teachers, bankers, technicians, nurses and other healthcare workers. Many people
If you’d like to learn more, please call me to schedule your free no-pressure consultation, I am always here to help you. Call 201-444-7150 or email me at integrativeacupuncturecenter@gmail.com. You can also read more about acupuncture on my blog posts on this website acupunctureYes.com.