How does acupuncture work? This is a question I get a fair bit, especially after people see how effective it is for assisting with symptoms of pain.
It is all about Qi and healthy blood flow
Qi represents healthy oxygenated blood flowing through your body. If you have a healthy movement of Qi, you should not have any injuries or diseases. However there are many things that can compromise the healthy flow of Qi. Some these are:
- Age
- Injury
- Disease
- Environment
- Rest
- Diet
All these factors place pressure on our bodies and can degrade how our blood might flow through our body. This in turn can affect how our nervous system may function, which affect our proprioceptive nerves, which are responsible for providing us with pain relief.
Chronic Pain
When we injure ourselves and we have poor circulation we can get stuck in a pain loop which can quickly turn into chronic pain in many areas of the body including:
- Neck
- Back
- Shoulders
- Head
How we think acupuncture works?
We pick points in a nerve sensitive area sending a message to the brain to open up the vessels and send more blood and pain relieving nerve transmitters through the affected area to retrain the body to heal itself.
We utilise distil needling rather then using massage manipulation, dry needling, or local acupuncture to the affected area. This process retrains the bodies healing response. It becomes second nature for the body to open up the vessels, sending blood and nutrition with pain relieving nerves. In theory this should take the pain away, hopefully resolving the injury and preventing an ongoing injury.
This is how we think acupuncture works and why we think it is so affective at assisting in treating symptoms of chronic pain. You can also watch Nick explain the process in his video blog here
Practitioner of Chinese Medicine
