When people seek help from an acupuncturist, it’s usually to
solve a specific problem.
Back pain, migraine headaches, seasonal allergies, insomnia. They’re treated and helped and they walk away singing the praises of the therapy they received for that one condition, far too frequently forgetting that the same wonders can be worked for a host of other issues and illnesses.
As a long-time Licensed Practitioner of Oriental Medicine, I’ve heard countless patients express what one long-ago back patient recently said when he returned to address another malady: he’d been here years ago but had forgotten how acupuncture had helped him feel so much better. He said, “I should have come back a while ago.” He couldn’t remember all the other things that acupuncture was good for: he just remembered that it solved his back pain.
This type of association is common, for better or worse. It’s how superstitions begin (somebody somewhere had something awful happen to them right after they saw a black cat cross their path) as well as how we link positive outcomes too (I wore these socks the last time the Eagles won the Superbowl, and I’m wearing them again now.) When it comes to acupuncture, when it works for a specific pain or problem, there’s an unfortunate after-effect that seems to block consideration of coming back to treat anything else. And that’s a mistake, because acupuncture is effective for so many things.
The list of conditions that acupuncture has proven effective at treating is longer than most people realize. There have been over 13,000 studies conducted across the globe, studying the therapy’s effect on everything from mood disorders to stroke. All that information was collected by the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs in 2010, updated in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and summarized in a 2017 publication called the Acupuncture Evidence Project that found evidence for acupuncture’s effectiveness for 117 conditions, with positive effect for allergic rhinitis, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, chronic low back pain, headache, knee osteoarthritis, migraine prevention, postoperative nausea and vomiting, and postoperative pain. The list of conditions for which acupuncture was deemed to have a potential positive effect is too long to repeat here, but includes anxiety, asthma in adults, irritable bowel syndrome, and obesity.
If acupuncture has helped you with a specific issue in the past, I encourage you to take that experience and consider it an invitation to further explore. There are so many ways that acupuncture and Chinese Medicine can facilitate better health and wellness. Treatments are personalized and tailored to your existing and evolving needs, and can address conditions and concerns including:
- Acute and Chronic Pain Management
- Supportive Cancer Care
- Stress, Depression, Anxiety, Insomnia
- Degenerative and Autoimmune Disorders
- Reproductive Health through All Life Stages
- Digestive Wellness
- Respiratory and Circulatory Issues
- Preventative Health and Immune System Regulation
- Complex Conditions
There are so many health concerns and goals that can be solved by acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, and so many paths to health. Please contact us to discuss how the multiple modalities available can help you on your path to wellness.
