by Christopher Walsh, LAC

Acupuncture has been growing quickly due to its accessibility, effectiveness, and its holistic philosophy. Even with vast amounts of information at our fingertips, it can still be hard to sort through the noise for clear answers on Acupuncture and Eastern Medicine. 

Here we can show 5 conditions that are most effectively treated with acupuncture, as well as some of the most common misconceptions.

1. Lower Back Pain

   It’s estimated that 84% of adults have suffered from some form of lower back pain at some point in their lives. Whether this is from the stressors of modern life or a sacrifice for being bipedal is up for debate, but it’s clear that acupuncture can be substantially effective in relieving pain from this common condition; acute or chronic.

2. Irregular Periods

   While modern medicine has been working on aiding women in regulating menstrual cycles for about 60 years, acupuncturists have been fine tuning effective treatments for various menstrual irregularities for millenia. This experience pays off as conditions like endometriosis, infertility, and painful periods consistently benefit from acupuncture without pharmaceutical intervention.

3. Stress and Anxiety

   I always tell my patients “one of the most common side effects of acupuncture is relaxation”. Acupuncture has shown to move people out of a flight or fight/ sympathetic response into a more rest and digest parasympathetic state. It also has shown to release certain feel-good endorphins and other hormones that relax the body and mind.

4. Autoimmune Conditions

   Autoimmune conditions are being dubbed “the disease of the 21st century” due to their rising prevalence and difficulty to diagnose and treat. Fortunately, acupuncture helps regulate and re-balance the immune system while reducing inflammation that may contribute to autoimmune symptoms.

5. Migraines

   Migraine headaches affect 10% of people worldwide, and in the US 17.6% of women and 5% of men reported experiencing migraine symptoms. Not only has acupuncture been shown to be effective in decreasing the severity and frequency of migraine attacks, it also works to treat the root cause of migraines to limit the symptoms for a lifetime. 

Misconceptions:

1. Acupuncture is painful

   The thought of inserting a needle into certain parts of the body may seem unpleasant, but this small hair-like needle is only 1/6th the size of a usual intravenous needle. While sensations such as tingling, itching, or heaviness are common, severe pain during insertion is exceedingly rare.

2. Acupuncture is unscientific

   While acupuncture is commonly categorized as pseudoscience, a plethora of research studies now exist that demonstrate acupuncture efficacy for a variety of conditions and even some of these possible mechanisms. Acupuncture has been in constant experimentation and modification for thousands of years, but has only recently been evaluated with research methods familiar to modern medicine and the scientific method in the 1970s. 

3. You have to “believe” in acupuncture for it to work

   Placebo is a strong stimulus, but acupuncture will work whether you believe in it or not. Dogs, cats, and horses do not necessarily “believe” in acupuncture, but veterinary acupuncture is employed for a range of health concerns on animals. You do not have to be a “believer” to believe the benefits.

4. Acupuncture is incompatible with Western medicine

   Although it seems as if Acupuncture and Western medicine butt heads, Acupuncture has been integrated into hospitals and research settings for decades. As Hellen Langavin, the director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, puts it eloquently “it's all one medicine”. Although we have different tools and frameworks for looking at the body, these differing perspectives can, and have, worked congruently to foster optimal human health.