The National Institutes of Health acknowledged the effectiveness of acupuncture in 1997, even suggesting that it should be taught in medical schools. Since then, acupuncture has slowly gained acceptance, and many of the best medical centers offer it today.
Despite its growing popularity, people are often surprised to learn about the many health conditions that acupuncture treats. At Integrative Medical Center, our team uses their expertise from over 30 years of practice in integrating eastern and western medicine by using acupuncture, natural remedies in traditional chinese medicine, and Western medicine to customize each patient's therapy to precisely target their unique health challenges.
No matter what health benefits are possible with acupuncture, many people stay away from the treatment because they associate needles with pain. That's reasonable, considering medical injections using a hypodermic needle commonly cause mild to severe pain. But acupuncture is different.
The needles employed in acupuncture don't resemble hypodermic needles. Hypodermic needles are designed to deliver medication or draw blood, so they’re hollow, wide, and have a sharp cutting edge.
By comparison, acupuncture needles are slim as a strand of hair, solid yet flexible, and have a tapered, rounded end. This allows the needle to gently glide through skin instead of cutting the tissues.
Most people don't feel the acupuncture needle when an experienced practitioner inserts it. If they do, it's like a momentary feeling of pressure. After the needle is fully inserted, you may feel a fullness or pressure sensation, numbness, or a tingling sensation. However, you shouldn't experience pain during your acupuncture session.
If you’ve had a painful acupuncture experience, schedule a consultation with us. We can answer your questions and teach you about the process and what to expect.
Here's a rundown of acupuncture's top health benefits:
Chronic pain seldom improves with medications, but that doesn't mean you need to give up hope of finding relief. Acupuncture provides significant pain relief no matter what causes your chronic pain. In fact, it's so effective that the American College of Physicians recommends acupuncture as the first line of treatment for low back pain.
The acupuncture needles stimulate your nervous system, triggering the release of biochemicals such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and endorphins. These biochemicals then ease pain, reduce inflammation, and help your body heal.
Acupuncture also improves connections between pain pathways in your brain. As nerve communication improves, you have less pain.
In addition to relieving pain, acupuncture accelerates overall healing after a sports injury. Your therapy also relaxes muscles, reduces inflammation, improves nerve function, and induces circulation, hence promoting healing.
Another benefit of acupuncture in healing sports injuries is that we can target multiple organs and body systems during one treatment, depending on where we insert the needles. Because sports injuries often cause imbalances in multiple body areas, acupuncture promotes holistic healing while the localized injury recovers.
Women are often surprised to learn that acupuncture can address some of the most common women’s health challenges. We may recommend acupuncture, alone or together with other treatments, for conditions such as:
In addition to improving the overall health of your reproductive tract, we can choose acupuncture points that target specific issues. For example, depending on where we place the needles, acupuncture helps restore hormonal balance, lower testosterone levels in women with PCOS, improve mood swings in PMS, and regulate menstrual cycles.
Acupuncture minimizes the side effects caused by all types of cancer treatments. Customized acupuncture significantly relieves common side effects such as nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dry mouth, hot flashes, insomnia, constipation, restlessness and other malaise symptoms due to heavy treatment for cancer.
We also use acupuncture to help patients overcome various types of cancer-related pain. For example, acupuncture eases post-operative pain, muscle and joint pain caused by certain medications, chronic musculoskeletal pain in cancer survivors, and the pain of peripheral neuropathy due to chemotherapy.
For more than 35 years of working with cancer centers in Southern California, we have helped many cancer patients recover faster and achieve a higher quality of life.
Acupuncture can address a vast array of health conditions. Based on clinical studies proving acupuncture's effectiveness, the World Health Organization endorses acupuncture for conditions such as:
Acupuncture also improves the symptoms caused by mental health conditions such as stress, depression, and anxiety.
To learn how acupuncture can heal your medical challenge, call Integrative Medical Center or book an appointment online today.
