How Many Acupuncture Visits Do I Need?
How many acupuncture visits do I need?
How many acupuncture visits do I need?, is a question that almost all of new patients ask me in my Ridgewood, NJ acupuncture office. Like most people, I’m sure you are reading this because you are researching the benefits of acupuncture and you also would like to know “how many?”
There are several factors that go into just giving a hard and fast number. It depends on several factors. I’d like to share the critical factors that go into decide how many acupuncture visits do I need?
Chronicity of yourpain:
Have you had pain that took on a life of its own? Do youhave degenerative disc disorders, pain in the shoulder that you just kept“pushing” through? Is there a prior surgery that you had on your back? Orsimply, have you had this pain that comes and goes, with repeated regularity?If so, chronic pain may respond quickly or slowly, to get the pain down to atolerable level. However, doing acupuncture after the acute crisis is over, totreat the underlying cause of the problem- the tight muscles- the crunchytendons that are shortened, for example, will help you get longer lastingcontrol of the pain. Sometimes, however, the chronic pain takes longer to treatbecause there is more damage to take into consideration- nerve pain, discproblems, arthritic, scar tissue from prior surgeries. All of these factors maymake the treatment course longer.
Contrast this to a spasm that you get from a weekend cleaningbinge. This is limited to muscularoverwork. There is no prior history ofthis occurring before. These types of conditions, e in as a little as one tofour acupuncture visits to resolve.
How much do youaggravate your pain?
Do you need to use your shoulder, back, or wrist in your day-to-dayjob? Hairdressers, professional movers, plumbers, and weight lifters are goingto get pains in the places of their body that they repetitively use every day.Without the ability to rest, the body part will keep getting inflamed. This almostpractically guarantee’s that you will double your treatment time withacupuncture!!! So if it takes two months to treat, the constant re-aggravationwill push it out to four months or more. Sometimes the aggravation is soextreme that it undoes all treatment! Those cases I cannot really help much. However, if you do not give up easy, steady,regular acupuncture can really help propel and push the pain forward. For thosewho will keep trying to use acupuncture, we can get the pain down to a reasonableand tolerable level.
Anything you can doto reverse any form of pain will incrementally, help you rise above the pain.
I have treated a lot of tennis elbow in my time, and many cannotstop their day to day activities because anyone who has the condition is usedto using their right side often. Even holding a mug of coffee can be verypainful. Typing and texting are agonizing. Using an elbow brace, a 46 year old mom of three was able to get herpain down from a 10 to a tolerable 2. Best of all she was able to hold hercoffee mug and resume typing at her job. The acupuncture pushed the pain overto a zero, once she started using the brace. It gave the elbow a chance to restand gets healed.
The question people ask, despite me aggravating the condition,can I still get benefits from acupuncture? Yes and no. Sometimes you can getahead of the pain, with intensive treatment, sometimes you cannot get ahead ofthe pain, due to the aggravating activities. If you could get rid of the pain,or at least reduce the pain to manageable levels, would you be open to this? Othertimes, you can get ahead of the pain, or get it down to a level that ismanageable. In many cases, if you laid off of the activity that aggravates it,or minimize the pain, it can be treated so there is no pain anymore!
Do not let the painget back to its original level of pain!
Another important factor in answering the question -how many acupuncture visits do I need?, The one thing you don’t want to do is wait until the pain gets worse. Acupuncture sends signals to release granulocytes, anti-inflammatories, and repair cells as well as to shut off the pain. But it isn’t a one-time deal. Acupuncture stimulates these signals so the brain acts upon it and the pain levels go down.
The last thing you want to do is nurse your treatments. Acupuncture must be continuous and to help you get past the pain.
For people in severe pain, acupuncture’s effects lastbetween 1 to 3 days after the sessions. For severe pain, you have got to treatregularly. You need to treat regularly, because we are driving up the body’sability to circulate blood flow to the area of pain. The body needs consistentinput from the acupuncture to really get the body’s anti-inflammatory and painreliving substances that the body produces. Getting acupuncture treatmentscloser together, will prevent the pain from returning back to its originallevel of severity. For example, if you have moderate pain, getting acupuncturetwice a week will help. If the pain issevere, then getting acupuncture, three times a week for some to three weekscan make unbearable pain – more bearable or be eliminated completely. Forsevere pain that is extremely debilitating, off the charts pain, acupuncturecan be done daily, and should be done this way. After a week or two, patientshave been able to get their pain down to 30% or less. They were able to do sobecause the sheer repetition of treatments pushed and prodded the body to healitself, on an incrementally fast level.
Managing Expectations
I have to confess, I get callers who tell me that theirso-and-so friend, got their pain reduced in one session. These people expectthat the result their friend had, is going to go the same way with theircondition. That sadly, is not necessarily the case. So I have to take the timeto go over what has happened over their lifetime to give them this pain. I dothis to see how chronic their pain really has been. I don’t want them to getdiscouraged that the nagging pain in their back for 15 years that is screamingin their face will not be gone in one visit. It’s managing the expectation andreally working conditions case, by case, that will get you the best results.
Acupuncture frequencyis a therapy not a pill!
Acupuncture frequency for pain varies. However, many come inthinking it is a one time deal. This is because people are used to taking pillsand feeling relief. But if you were to examine that, the pain keeps creepingback, causing you to take more and more pills to prevent the condition fromreturning, so you really aren’t getting ahead of the pain nor curing it, ratheryou are just managing it. There has been an emphasis on medicine to use lessmedication due to the opioid epidemic. A recent study showed that aspirin wasno better than some heavy duty pain medications. The question being asked, isit worth the side effects if it doesn’t help so much?
Trial Run toDetermine Your Rate of Response
I usually will do a “trial run” of initial acupuncture visits,to determine how many acupuncture visits you need for more chronic conditions.Depending on how fast your body responds, this is what I base futurepredictions as to how many visits you will need. Seeing how well you respond totreatments is called your rate of response. Some people respond quickly, somerespond slowly, and others not at all. What I mean by respond is that do youfeel relief on the table? (That is a quick response) How long do you feel therelief for? (Longer duration means quicker response. Shorter duration meansslower response). Did it take you three visits to actually feel any response? (That is a slowerresponse). Do you still feel the pain but feel it less now? (That is a positiveresponse) The trick is to do the trial run to see how your body reacts to theacupuncture. If the treatments are timedright it does create the cumulative beneficial effects of getting blood flow toa region, repeatedly.
After the initial series, we have a clear indication in whatdirection you are going in and I can give you a better estimate of the courseof treatment. So I hope these pointshave helped you clarify the question So, how many acupuncture visits do I need?
Tune into my next article, where I will be talking aboutfrequency in conditions like anxiety, fatigue, and depression.
Are you caught in a vice of pain with no hope in sight? Areyou just living with pain? I invite you to call me and see what I can do tohelp you get out of pain and back into life. I give you 100% of my effort witha no-nonsense assessment of your case. I don’t pressure you into anything. Locatedin the heart of Bergen County, NJ, our Ridgewood office treats pain andprovides stress reduction and energy enhancement treatments. You can call me at201-444-7150 or email me at integrativeacupuncturecenter@gmail.com.I look forward to hearing from you.