Acupuncture Treats a Wide Array of Problems
Acupuncture involves the insertion of very fine needles at specific points on the body. These needles unblock the energy, known as qi in Traditional Chinese Medicine, that flows through channels in our bodies. Blockages of qi can cause pain and other disorders.
A report from the UN World Health Organization (WHO), Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Studies (Tinyurl.com/WHO-Acu-Report) is based on controlled clinical trials involving the effectiveness of acupuncture on different ailments. Acupuncture is known to treat pain issues such as headaches (including migraines), TMJ, muscular pains (including low back pain, sciatica, tennis elbow and fibromyalgia), rheumatoid arthritis, gout, pain from trauma or postoperative procedures and pain from childbirth.
The WHO report provides clinical data on a variety of additional disorders that prove acupuncture’s effectiveness, including inducing childbirth, morning sickness, PMS, Bell’s palsy, recovery from strokes, insomnia, allergic rhinitis, nausea, irritable bowel syndrome, stomach-related pain, cancer pain and side effects from treatment, and mental health disorders such as depression and schizophrenia and others.
Several types of patients may well find relief using acupuncture treatments: those that seek only holistic approaches to healing, those trying to reduce their dependence on Western medicine procedures and pharmaceuticals for their ailments and those that have received insufficient or no relief from their disorders with other treatments.
While Western medicine procedures and pharmaceuticals are sometimes fraught with risks and dangerous side effects, effects observed or reported by patients using acupuncture have been better digestion and healthier bowels, more satisfying sleep and greater sense of well-being. The risks of acupuncture, as noted in the WHO report, are minimal.
Acupuncturists are trained to treat a wide spectrum of disorders, so for some individuals, acupuncture should be considered first for non-life threatening disorders. Sometimes seeking acupuncture for medical needs depends more on a person’s approach to maintaining health than the disease itself.
People can start by contacting an acupuncturist to find out if they can and will treat the disorder. For those that need more proof of the validity of acupuncture, there is a constant stream of new clinical studies found on the Web that prove the effectiveness of acupuncture for an array of conditions. For many, the proof is the relief they feel after trying acupuncture.
Thomasina Breen, LAc, is a licensed acupuncturist at Breen Acupuncture, in Waldwick, NJ. For more information or to make an appointment, call 201-203-0356 or visit BreenAcupuncture.com.
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