Does Chinese Acupuncture Actually work?
Acupuncture has been practiced for thousands of years, and in recent decades, a growing number of high-quality studies have explored its effectiveness — especially for pain-related conditions (Vickers et al., 2018). Research shows that acupuncture can be helpful in managing conditions like chronic low back pain (Lam, Galvin, & Curry, 2013; Xiang, He, Tian, Cao, & Li, 2020) , knee osteoarthritis (Affairs, 2010, Corbett et al., 2013, Manyanga et al., 2014), and headaches (Linde et al., 2016, Coeytaux & Befus, 2016, Affairs, 2010).
Marie practices Chinese acupuncture, which uses a classical diagnostic system including pulse and abdominal diagnosis to tailor each treatment to the individual. This is different to ‘medical acupuncture’ or ‘dry needling’ that does not think or treat more than the presenting pain issue. Chinese acupuncture refers to the whole system of Chinese medicine being at the disposal of the practitioner, and treatments can include things like cupping, moxibustion ear acupuncture, and many forms of needling rather than just placing a needle at the site of pain to block pain or release muscle tension (often the thinking behind dry needling or western medical based acupuncture approaches). Chinese medicine based Acupuncturists also do these techniques plus a buch of other stuff that is relevant to your case and health goals. Rather than treating a symptom in isolation, the focus is on understanding patterns in your body and supporting your health in a more holistic way.
While results vary from person to person, many people find acupuncture to be a useful part of their health plan.
REFERENCES:
Affairs, A. G. D. o. V. (2010). Alternative therapies and Department of Veterans’ Affairs Gold and White Card arrangements. Australia Biotext
Coeytaux, R. R., & Befus, D. (2016). Role of Acupuncture in the Treatment or Prevention of Migraine, Tension-Type Headache, or Chronic Headache Disorders. Headache, 56(7), 1238-1240. doi:10.1111/head.12857
Corbett, M. S., Rice, S. J., Madurasinghe, V., Slack, R., Fayter, D. A., Harden, M., . . . Woolacott, N. F. (2013). Acupuncture and other physical treatments for the relief of pain due to osteoarthritis of the knee: network meta-analysis. Osteoarthritis Cartilage, 21(9), 1290-1298. doi:10.1016/j.joca.2013.05.007
Lam, M., Galvin, R., & Curry, P. (2013). Effectiveness of acupuncture for nonspecific chronic low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Spine (Phila Pa 1976), 38(24), 2124-2138. doi:10.1097/01.brs.0000435025.65564.b7
Linde, K., Allais, G., Brinkhaus, B., Fei, Y., Mehring, M., Shin, B. C., . . . White, A. R. (2016). Acupuncture for the prevention of tension-type headache. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 4(4), Cd007587. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD007587.pub2
Manyanga, T., Froese, M., Zarychanski, R., Abou-Setta, A., Friesen, C., Tennenhouse, M., & Shay, B. L. (2014). Pain management with acupuncture in osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Complement Altern Med, 14, 312. doi:10.1186/1472-6882-14-312
Meade, E., & Garvey, M. (2022). The Role of Neuro-Immune Interaction in Chronic Pain Conditions; Functional Somatic Syndrome, Neurogenic Inflammation, and Peripheral Neuropathy. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(15), 8574. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/15/8574
Vickers, A. J., Vertosick, E. A., Lewith, G., MacPherson, H., Foster, N. E., Sherman, K. J., . . . Linde, K. (2018). Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Update of an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis. J Pain, 19(5), 455-474. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2017.11.005
Xiang, Y., He, J. Y., Tian, H. H., Cao, B. Y., & Li, R. (2020). Evidence of efficacy of acupuncture in the management of low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised placebo- or sham-controlled trials. Acupunct Med, 38(1), 15-24. doi:10.1136/acupmed-2017-011445