What’s the deal with Acupuncture?
I have been asked numerous times by patients, “what’s the deal with acupuncture ? “, “how does acupuncture work?” This question is always hard to answer because there are still many puzzles left to solve when it comes to acupuncture. Not only to the lay person but also to those with extensive knowledge of anatomy and physiology. How does an acupuncture needle in the hand make a person’s headache feel better and how does an acupuncture needle in the leg improve digestion?
There are two different ways to look at acupuncture and explain it. The first is through traditional Chinese medicine. The second is the Western medicine interpretation.
Traditional Chinese practitioners have been practicing acupuncture for thousands of years and to understand Chinese or Eastern Asian medicine you need to have…an open mind to say the least.
First lets talk about Yin & Yang theory. This is the logic underlying Chinese medical theory, it assumes that a part can be understood only in its relation to the whole. So Yin and Yang are two complementary forces used to describe how things function in relation to each other. Everyone has elements of yin and elements of yang, and when the two are out of balance the result is disease. Yin is characterized by qualities such as cold, rest, downwardness, darkness and decrease. While Yang is characterized by qualities such as heat, stimulation, movement and increase. In clinical practice someone with a fever would be considered to have excess Yang.
Next we have to talk about Qi. Everything in the universe, inorganic and organic is composed of and defined by its Qi. Mountains, plants and human emotions all have Qi. Qi is not so much a force added to lifeless matter but the “pulsation of the cosmos itself.” In eastern medicine every person has many different types of Qi that are indifferent parts of the body, for example defensive Qi is primarily in the skin and lungs and nutritive Qi is in the blood and blood vessels.
The next concept we will tackle is meridians. Meridians are the channels or pathways the carry Qi …and blood. They are not blood vessels rather they comprise an invisible lattice that links together all the fundamental organs. The meridians connect the interior of the body with the exterior. This is the basis of acupuncture theory that working with points on the surface of the body will have an impact on what goes on inside the body because it affects the Qi traveling through the meridians. Acupuncture needles are placed within specific points in these meridians. There are 12 meridians that represent 12 organs that are significant in Chinese medicine. Some of these organs are considered to be Yin and others Yang. The treatment goal is to balance the Yin & Yang. For example if someone has a cold, the thought may be that there is not a lot of Yang Qi in the lungs. Therefore the lung meridian would be stimulated with acupuncture needles. Going back to the example of a point in the hand reducing headaches, that point is in the liver meridian, the liver controls heat and by putting a needle there, the practitioner helps to expel heat. Heat like wind and dampness is one of the main pathogens in traditional Chinese medicine.
Believe it or not this is a very oversimplified explanation of how traditional Chinese practitioners use acupuncture. But acupuncture has since been “Westernized”. When research articles started coming out supporting acupuncture treatment for a number of different disorders western scientists wanted to figure out why it worked. Here is what they came up with…
- Acupuncture needles stimulate hormone production of opiates & serotonin to reduce or eliminate pain
- Acupuncture points in muscles are mapped out at motor points and may help muscles function better
- Acupuncture needles stimulate nerves to improve muscle and nerve function
- Placebo effect…it works because people think it will work.
As a chiropractor I normally use acupuncture to treat…pain. It is very effective for arthritis in the knee, hip & back, muscle spasms, nerve pain and headaches. But I have also seen it help people with digestive problems so who knows.