I speak with a lot of people in Asheville who have questions about Acupunture. While many of us understand acupuncture on a general level, I find many people are never given a practical explanation of why it works.
You might be surprised to learn that I end up talking to these people about circuit breakers – and I’ll explain why in a minute.
Maybe you identify with several patients we’ve helped this last week. I hear similar stories from everyone: you felt a bit of pain and it was manageable, then it got worse. It’s common to have Sciatica (pain/numbness down the back of the leg, behind the knee or even into the foot), Carpal Tunnel (numbness in the wrist/hand), Arthritis, Bursitis or even an old sports injury that never quite healed. Finally you went to a health professional, whether an MD, massage therapist, Chiropractor, or Acupuncturist, and you learn that you have one of these conditions.
Many people wind up leaving the office with a list of exercises to do and maybe some pain pills to take. *-While some find relief, many people are not able to become 100% pain free from these methods. Searching for another option, many people find out that we perform Acupuncture here are River Ridge Chiropractic. That’s when I get a call.
The first thing I tell people is to think about Acupuncture as a flipping a circuit breaker in your body.
When you stimulate an problem area with acupuncture, it causes a cascade of immune reactions to start the healing process, that is where picking the points is so important either to increase or decrease nerve activity in the area. This is great for old injuries that have never healed fully or have stopped healing. It encourages the body to begin healing that area again – just like flipping a circuit breaker. This can also be fantastic for arthritis and carpal tunnel. As with all issues, if there is an underlying mechanical issue to an area, it needs to be addressed first before acupuncture can help (see this blog post that discusses underlying mechanical issues).
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to email or call – or drop us a line on our Facebook or Twitter page.
Until next time! -Dr. Bart
