Acupuncture for Pain and Inflammation
If you experience any kind of pain or inflammation, you may be interested to know that there is a drug-free alternative being used more and more by the medical community. This alternative is called acupuncture.
Over 85% of referrals to our center for pain and inflammatory conditions come from medical doctors. Why? Because doctors are now recognizing the wealth of research supporting acupuncture, and more and more patients want an alternative to medication. This drug-free alternative is specifically known as biomedically-based acupuncture, which helps reduce pain and inflammatory conditions.
The body has an amazing ability to heal. You don’t need to tell your body to heal – the only time it does not heal is when there is some type of interference with the self-healing process. When the body does not heal or goes beyond normal healing time, the system starts to become faulty. When that occurs, the body goes into self-protection mode, causing it to get stuck in a pattern of chronic pain and inflammation.
Now remember, the body would never do anything to harm itself. In fact, this pattern has been created to self-protect. You’re probably thinking, “No, my body is trying to kill me, it hates me!” Your suffering and its effects on your life are understandable. However, it’s also important to realize that the system is faulty, and it’s creating its own demise by causing the system to generate more and more pain.
The main problem here is that the body gets stuck in a pattern, adapting to the condition, and learns to live with it. When this happens, the body no longer prioritizes the condition and therefore becomes chronic.
This is where biomedical acupuncture has a profound effect. Why? Because it turns on the body’s highest priority system, called the blood clotting system. This system is more important than any other system when it comes to survival. Let’s explain its role through an example:
If you had a paper cut and you didn’t have the ability to clot, what do you think would happen? That’s right, you’d keep bleeding! 3,000 years ago, ancient medical experts in China figured out how to bypass this system without causing a bleeding effect, but still turning on this high priority system. The key to acupuncture’s success is the hair-thin width of the needles. When we insert a needle, the body goes on alert and responds immediately, “What in the world just penetrated the borders?”
It’s important to recognize that when we insert the point, we are creating a microtrauma. That’s right! A little, tiny, minute trauma that is not visible to the eyes, but that appears only under a microscope. When this occurs, the body will not only see this as a high priority to the location to self-protect, but it also begins to self-repair at a high rate, kind of like an emergency rehab crew, because the body believes it’s a new injury.
Now here is the key. The body does not know the difference between the tiny microtrauma that we’ve created with the needle, and the old injury. So guess what it does! That’s right. The body then drives high amounts of blood flow into the entire area. So when we use acupuncture, we are tricking and triggering the brain and nervous system to self-repair.
Essentially, when you move more blood into any area of the body, you increase the probability to heal exponentially. Why? Because blood contains all of the vital substances for self-repair like oxygen, nutrients, hormones, and immunological properties.
Interestingly, as we increase self-repair, the need for medication is reduced. This is because the body is working more effectively in the area of trauma. So what happens? The medications become more effective! When the medications become more effective, guess what also happens? You do not need as much!
Biomedical acupuncture does not simply numb the area – it doesn’t just turn off the alarm systems. It turns on self-repair in the region, and when that happens, your pain decreases because the area is literally healing. Your function increases, which is key. It’s not just about getting the pain down. Medications are powerful for that. It’s really about improving the quality of your life. Ultimately, your need for medication then reduces as a result of acupuncture.
This is what we often see when we utilize biomedical acupuncture for pain and inflammation.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can assist you with your specific health concerns and how we can best integrate the use of biomedical acupuncture along with your current health care in a safe and effective way, call (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists. They will answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.