Acupuncture and Electrical Stimulation

Acupuncture

Treating Pain and Restoring Function

What do you do when something goes wrong with your health? Are you used to reaching for a pill, or just enduring the changes without any recourse or plan? Your body holds incredible healing potential, and acupuncture helps you to access it.

Whether you’ve tried acupuncture in the past or have yet to try this healing modality, you may wonder what is happening in the body when the needle is inserted. If you are unfamiliar with the procedure, you might assume all sorts of things that may be inaccurate or misunderstood due to popular representations of acupuncture in the media.

Acupuncture is most known for treating pain anywhere in the body, but did you know that it can help restore function, too?

Acupuncture restores balance.

Whether we’re talking about the mind and body, or aspects of any organ or system, acupuncture works by directing the repairing, restoring, and potentiating of your internal healing mechanisms.

We start by identifying the imbalance of yin and yang energies. Through observation, inquiry, and investigation, we formulate a treatment plan customized to your needs and health goals.

Acupuncture is safe, gentle, and effective. With needles thinner than human hair, we can support your health and improve overall wellness preventively. We can also treat short and long-term illnesses and injuries to restore function and stop the pain.

Stimulation of the acupuncture needles produces a series of subtle and powerful physiological responses. These responses work together to:

• decrease inflammation
• enhance range of motion
• regulate hormones
• diminish stress
• reduce pain
• promote faster healing
• improve immune response
• release muscle tension

Acupuncture mobilizes energy.

You might assume that acupuncture needles will hurt, but this is a common misconception. Usually, you won’t feel anything at all, but if you do, it’s generally milder than a quick pinch. For most patients, coordinating the insertion with your breath can mitigate any discomfort. Then, once they are in, it might seem counterintuitive, but the needles will actually cause your nervous system to calm down. This helps your body to relax overall. You might even manage to doze off and fall asleep during treatment!

The manipulation of needles restores the dynamic flow of “Qi” and blood in your body. When we talk about “Qi” in Chinese medicine, we refer to your functional aspects of health. For example, when “Qi” is deficient, your normal organ functions will diminish. You might feel fatigued or experience poor digestion, for example.

Researchers invested considerable effort to uncover the effective mechanisms of acupuncture. Using highly technical imaging, they reported on measurable changes to local connective tissue. They observed secretions of various molecules responsible for recruiting and mobilizing healthy cells, including ATP, the primary energy molecule used by all our cells.

Therefore, it is not surprising that acupuncture is said to “move energy” because molecules related to mobility and cellular function readily respond to the treatment to support healing.

Acupuncture regulates regions of the brain.

Evidence from Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the brain demonstrates that acupuncture intervention involves complex brain tissue alterations. Additionally, research shows that this effect gradually diminishes over time.

In clinical practice, your beneficial response to the treatment depends upon several factors, including the type, severity, and timing of your injury or illness.

The functional brain changes due to acupuncture at specific points may involve multiple levels of different activities over a wide range of brain networks.

Regular treatments gradually enhance these effects even after removing the acupuncture needles. These effects give rise to the clinical importance of specific points and standard treatment to heal your illness or injury and provide evidence that this is not simply due to a placebo effect.