How Does Acupuncture Really Work?

The realization that you are in pain occurs through the actions of two distinct nerves sending signals throughout your body:

1. Sensory Pain Nerves (Nociceptors): These send signals up the spine to the brain that allow the brain to sense that there is pain somewhere in the body.

2. Proprioceptive nerve fibers: These send signals to the brain where the pain is by firing at the affected area.

When the brain senses the area where the proprioceptive nerve fibers are firing, it releases endorphins to control the pain until the body can heal itself.

Chronic pain occurs when the proprioceptive neural threshold is low, which means that the signal to the brain is weak at best and thus the brain does not release endorphins. This is occurring in many patients who know they have pain but cannot quite say where it is.

Acupuncture helps because the sensation caused by the needles stimulates the brain to recognize the pain and release endorphins to counter it. This process temporarily re-boots the proprioceptive nerves, but because this weak signal is a condition, the stimulated signal caused by acupuncture weakens after a few hours. This just means that the body needs repeated sessions to train the proprioceptive nerve pathway to send normal signals to the brain. Just like you need to work out more than once to obtain strong muscles, you will need more than once acupuncture treatment to obtain strong nerve signals.

There are 5 ways in which Acupuncture works to achieve this goal:

1. Strengthens Immune System: Acupuncture has been shown to escalate certain hormones, white blood cell counts, and antibody production. Many acupuncturists can tell you that when they perform on patients with HIV, their white blood count and T cell levels increase after every treatment. Making for happier and healthier patients.

2. Stimulates Endorphins: Acupuncture creates both an immediate and a lasting pain relief by stimulating endorphin release with every treatment, and training the body to react that way to pain.

3. Neurotransmitters: Serotonin and Noradrenalin levels, both neurotransmitters, are shown to be affected with proper acupuncture treatments.

4. Circulation: Acupuncture has an effect on the efficiency of the circulatory system, having the ability to constrict or dilate blood vessels.

5. Nerve Gate Control: Acupuncture can close nerve gates by giving the impulses through strategically placed needles, overloading them. This process actually reduces pain transmission.

Balance Method

The purpose of the Balance Method is to restore the body’s balance by targeting areas that aren’t near the pain. By healing the body as a whole, not simply focusing on the area in pain, we can produce a healing that lasts and that makes you feel great.

This is done by targeting specific acupuncture points which stimulate blood flow, relax and re-train muscles, soothe nerves, and re-energize the body’s natural healing system.

This is a fantastic method that we at Acupuncture Fredericksburg use because it stimulates a lasting healing process by:

• Using acupuncture points away (distant) from the injured or painful area, leaving sensitive places needle free.

• Using fewer acupuncture points (less than fifteen) to produce more effective results.

• Producing instantaneous relief.

• Generating continuous improvement with comprehensive and successive treatments.

• Requiring fewer treatments to achieve a stable and lasting improvement.

• Allowing you to remain clothed through the process

• Being time efficient