Acupuncture

21st Century Medicine for Over 2,000 Years

Acupuncture is a method of encouraging the body to promote healing and improve functioning by inserting needles or applying heat or electrical stimulation at precise acupuncture points. The classical Chinese explanation of acupuncture's effectiveness is that channels of energy run in regular patterns through the body and over its surface. These channels, sometimes referred to as meridians, are like rivers flowing through the body to cleanse and nourish tissues and organs. An obstruction in the movement of these energy rivers is like a dam that backs up the flow in one part of the body and restricts it in others. Any blockage or deficiency of energy and blood will eventually lead to disease and become evidenced by pain or dysfunction.

The meridians can be influenced by needling the acupuncture points. Hair-thin acupuncture needles remove obstructions and reestablish the regular flow through the channels. Therefore, acupuncture treatment helps the body's internal organs correct problems in digestion, absorption, elimination, and energy production through balancing circulation.

To understand this from a western biomedical perspective, we correlate these channels to the pathways and means by which information travels in the body. These fall into the broad categories of the bioelectric and the biochemical. In the insertion of an acupuncture needle, there is a microscopic amount of trauma to the tissues. This microtrauma elicits both bioelectric (increased amperage) and biochemical (neurotransmitter and neurohormone modulation) changes that stimulate the body's own homeostatic response. Therefore, acupuncture tends to bring the body back to balance, rather than pushing it in one direction or another.

Some Acupuncture-Appropriate Disorders Listed by the World Health Organization: