Does Acupuncture Work To Reduce Pain And Cure Illness?
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is the traditional form of Chinese medicine which involves inserting needles into the skin at specific points, in an attempt to combat pain and disease. Although this form of medicine has been in existence for centuries, it has only recently began to attract interest from practitioners in the West. Many studies have now been carried out into the practice, without any definite conclusions being drawn. This has not been helped by the obvious deceit which has sometimes been practiced by its advocates, such as when people are given anesthetics unknown to the watching viewer.
The obvious questions of ìIs Acupuncture Effective?î and ìDoes Acupuncture Work?î are impossible to answer with a simple yes or no. Even after repeated studies have been carried out, there is still no answer as to whether the improvements in health which were reported were due to the treatment itself, or the placebo effect. Certainly, there has been nothing reported which was so spectacular that it convinced the doubters of the efficacy of the technique. The official stance is that the technique could be effective in treating pain and neurological conditions.
It is also as well to be aware that this type of medicine is not 100% safe. Although the law insists that needles used for this type of treatment are either brand new, which is preferable, or at least sterilized after each use, there is still a risk of an infection developing. There have even been deaths following the insertion of needles into the body, so this treatment is not one to be tried without carrying out serious research into what is involved, and then assessing your own suitability for the treatment.
In many countries acupuncture is not a regulated practice, meaning that there are no official bodies to oversee the practice of the technique and make sure that everything is done properly. There are no registers of licensed practitioners, which would make potential patients feel more at ease visiting an acupuncturist. There is, of course, some protection from the law in the fact that all needles need to be either new or sterilized, but even so it is virtually impossible to police this law unless something actually happens to draw attention to a practitioner.
Acupuncture has a long history in China, and is now being brought to the West by those on a quest to find alternatives to the often invasive and dangerous medical systems of conventional medicine. If you do decide to use this form of treatment for your condition, be aware that you will be something of a guinea pig, and that science has not yet fully come to terms with the potentials of this treatment system, which to many scientists is new and revolutionary. More research is needed, as it is with so many of the techniques of Chinese medicine, and this research promises to tell us so much in terms of its potentiality.
The main hazards from this system of medicine come from the fact that it needs to be invasive to a degree. While there are no large incisions cut into the skin as there in conventional medicine, there is still an incision of sorts made by the needle. Any qualified acupuncturist will make sure that the needles are in the best condition possible, in fact it is best if they are brand new. They can be sterilized, but anything less than this will not be legal. The main difficulty that acupuncturists run into is with piercing the skin at the wrong point. There have been cases of nerves being damaged, sometimes irretrievably, by the acupuncture needles, even though the practitioner had been careful.
One of the main questions people ask, after ìDoes Acupuncture Work?î, is ìIs there any alternative which gives the same potential for healing, without the risks involved in having needles put into my skin?î The answer, of course, is that there are so many more Chinese medical techniques which are only just starting to be investigated in the Western world. Some of these are similar to those an acupuncturist would use, while others are involved with diet and exercise. The whole of Chinese medicine needs to be studied thoroughly in the light of Western discoveries, because there is much to be learned.
There are other techniques which are substantially similar to acupuncture, such as acupressure which seeks to use the same meridians of the body in a safer way. As the skin is never broken, this is a non-invasive treatment and is therefore inherently safer. Not only does this technique avoid the risk of infection from needles, it also avoids the possibility of nerve damage from pierced skin. How acupressure varies in terms of efficacy remains unknown, as more trials are needed into both this technique and acupuncture.
