If you suffer from acute pain that isn’t controlled by standard medical treatment or medications, there is help. Acupuncture is a form of complementary medicine that promotes self-healing and eases pain and discomfort.
Learn how acupuncture is an old-fashioned way to improve your health and help you sleep better at night.
What Is Acupuncture?
According to the UC San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine, acupuncture uses needles to stimulate acupoints. The location of the acupoints and the number of sessions needed to help heal a specific condition depends on the ailment.
While considered complementary medicine in the United States, acupuncture is considered a standard form of treatment in Asian countries.
Why Acupuncture?
Many people turn to acupuncture when standard Western medicine doesn’t seem to supply the necessary relief. If someone is suffering from acute pain, he or she will often search for any way to find relief.
Acupuncture has proven to help heal ailments such as diabetic neuropathy, and relieve symptoms of cancer that modern prescriptions can’t assist.
Acupuncture And Sleep
When a person is suffering from chronic pain, they often find it difficult to sleep at night. Sleep is a necessary part of the healing process. If a person can’t manage to obtain the necessary hours of uninterrupted sleep then it can hurt the body’s ability to heal itself.
Food And Pain
If someone is suffering from nausea and pain, they will not be able to consume enough food. Like sleep, food is a necessary part of the body’s healing process. Food provides energy, which is used by the body to heal ailments.
How Acupuncture Helps
Acupuncture helps with serious health issues such as Rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, diabetic neuropathy and depression. It can also help with morning sickness, lower back pain, sprains and tennis elbow. It is a drug free way to reduce discomfort and is considered a part of holistic medicine.
Acupuncture Process
If you are interested in using acupuncture to reduce pain and increase health then you need to start with an examination from an acupuncture specialist. He or she will discuss your ailment and health history to determine the course of treatment. He or she will then talk with you about how many treatments is necessary and how long each treatment will be.
During the treatment, you will be able to lie on a treatment table and relax. You won’t feel the needles in your body and you can meditate, sleep or just let your mind wander until the treatment is complete.
The needles will remain in the acupoints for as little as five minutes or as long as half an hour, depending on treatment goals.
It may take a few treatments for you to feel the benefits of the acupuncture, but often patients say they feel better after the first session. There are no side effects to acupuncture and it won’t interact with any medication you may receive from your physician.
You can receive acupuncture treatments and any care prescribed by your doctor simultaneously. This may shorten the length of treatment necessary under your doctor’s care.
While acupuncture isn’t always covered by health insurance, its popularity and proven health benefits have increased coverage by many health plans.
Sessions can cost upward from $140 dollars depending on your location, the type of treatment and the specialist.
If you prefer health treatments without drugs then you may want to turn to acupuncture as an effective alternative. It is a way to keep your body clean while helping your body increase its efforts to cure ailments, manage acute pain or help reduce discomfort.
