Acupuncture is an ancient therapy which has been used for over 2500 years. The first evidence of acupuncture was thought to be done by sharpened bone fragments, stones or other sharpened tools to drain abscesses and to treat disease though blood-letting.
In fact no one really knows how long acupuncture has been around. Otzi the Iceman, who was found in 1991 in the Dolomites was a perfectly preserved mummy dated back 5300 years. The people that was performing tests on Otzi discovered a tattoo on his lower back. One of the doctors was being treated for lower back arthritis and when he did an MRI scan on Otzi they discovered the tattoo was in the same place as the acupuncturist put the doctors’ needles.
Upon insertion it is said to release the body’s natural opiates which helps with pain relief. However this doesn’t explain how it works in lowering high blood pressure, highering low blood pressure, regulating hormones and works amazingly well for acid reflux amongst treating many other symptoms.
To understand this you need to understand Qi. This is what a well trained acupuncturist has learnt to tune into. Qi is energy and electricity and it is all around us. It is what keeps us, the body and the mind connected.
When cells start to lose their connection to the body, the body gives of signs or symptoms that it is not doing what it should. Illness comes in 6 ways, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, 4 from yang and 2 from yin which is very confusing for the untrained person as we in the west don’t have this. Wind, heat, strong heat, dry (yang) damp and cold (yin) inside a body gives different signs or symptoms. A practitioner of acupuncture or microsystem acupuncture can insert needles into the specific body point to say to these cells ‘you’re losing connection with the body’ and we steer the cells back to what they should be doing.
A great analogy of Qi is using football, hockey or rugby team. The most expensive team players in the world would lose a match to the local lads or lasses who play everyday and drink down at the local pub. This is because the local team have connection, even without talking they instinctively know where the others are on the pitch and speed and direction. The big money boys who only know each other by name are bound to lose as they don’t have a connection or they don’t have qi.
A body that is in discomfort or pain has either had a trauma or has taken many years to get that way therefore the treatments must be in quick succession and over a period of time. One or 2 treatments isn’t going to make a massive difference. You need to keep at it and the body will adjust. Once we have achieved the right results there most be top up sessions afterwards. These can be once a month or 3 times a year.
A client of mine who has played golf for 60 years came to see me about a very sore shoulder with pain running down the back of her arm. She also has a dog and has a dog wanger/ ball thrower and has a repetitive injury due to throwing the dog ball every morning on her dog walks. She had acupuncture in her shoulder and some other points in the feet, legs and hands. I saw her 6 times over a 3 month period and we managed to get her pain free and back to playing golf and dog wangging! This was over 2 years ago and she only comes to see me now for tops up every 4 months which she is still pain free.
Having said it can be a long process to get back to being pain free. Abdominal acupuncture is widely used in Chinese hospital all over China as it is so effective for pain relief. It is something that over here is not widely available and must be tried if you are suffering.
Nowadays, It is a safe and gentle treatment using sterile needles inserted at the precise location of the acupuncture points along the meridian channels in the body. These plug directly into the internal organs and help to boost the body’s natural energy flow and improves its function.