There is a lot to know about a medicine that has been in existence for thousands of years!
Most people are familiar with the fact that acupuncture involves the insertion of tiny needles in different areas of the body to treat health concerns. The regular acupuncture goer might know that we diagnose conditions based on patterns of imbalances, such as “qi stagnation” or “dampness”. Who doesn’t love the client that comes in telling you that their liver qi feels stuck? Whether you are new to the world of acupuncture or not, enjoy these fun facts you might not know about acupuncture!
Acupuncture is a highly individualized, patient-centered medicine. For example, if 25 people with a headache received acupuncture, all 25 people could have different acupuncture points chosen as part of their treatment.
There are over 300 acupuncture points on the body. The points are located from head to toe and are connected by the acupuncture meridian system. Every point has its own special function and many work on both a physical and mental-emotional level.
Acupuncturists look at your tongue and take your pulses. These are diagnostic tools that are used to gain information about your health and plan a course of treatment.
Acupuncture looks at how root imbalances affect the whole system. When one thing is out of whack, it can affect you in multiple ways. Acupuncture excels at tackling multiple symptoms all in one treatment while also correcting the root cause.
You don’t have to have anything wrong to get an acupuncture treatment. One of acupuncture’s strengths is its ability to PREVENT things from going wrong. As a preventative medicine, acupuncture boosts the immune system, promotes healthy circulation, aids in organ and cell detoxification, decreases inflammation, and helps your body respond to stress in a healthy way.
Today’s acupuncture needles are as thin as a strand of hair and don’t hurt! They are single-use, sterile, and made of stainless steel. Thousands of years ago, this was a different story- the original acupuncture “needles” were made of sharpened stones, bamboo, or bone.
Licensed Acupuncturists undergo extensive training. We attend a rigorous 3-4 year graduate program and complete over 2,000+ clinical internship and continuing education hours. Our training includes a strong foundation in western medicine, ethics, and safety.
In 2003, the World Health Organization published a review of clinical trials of acupuncture, Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials. This review endorses the use of acupuncture for over 200 symptoms and diseases. The US National Institutes of Health issued a consensus statement proposing acupuncture as a therapeutic intervention for complementary medicine.
Acupuncture was essentially unknown in the US until President Nixon's visit to China in the early 1970s. An accompanying reporter from the New York Times had to undergo an emergency appendectomy and experienced significant port-operative pain relief with acupuncture. His first-person account of its benefits was widely publicized in the US.
Acupuncture is just one part of a broad system of Chinese Medicine. Other healing modalities include chinese herbal medicine, tui na (massage), tai chi/qi gong (movement), and Chinese dietary therapy.
