What is acupuncture?

Acupuncture is a modality of treatment from a 2500+ year old system of medicine originated in ancient China, called “Traditional Chinese Medicine” (TCM). In recent years, this time-honored healing art has gained wide acceptance as a powerful complement to conventional modern medicine. An acupuncturist will place fine, sterile, disposable needles at specific acupoints on the body. This activates the body Qi and promotes natural healing by enhancing recuperative power, immunity and physical and emotional health. The National Institute of Health, the World Health Organization, and other national and international health and medical bodies have come to integrate and promote acupuncture as a safe, effective, and low-cost method of treatment for a wide variety of disorders. Â

Does it hurt?

The sensation of an acupuncture needle varies. The needles are hair thin, and you may feel a slight pinch as it is inserted, but generally it is painless. Once inserted, you may begin to feel sensations of warmth, heaviness, cramping, tingling, or electric sensations around the needle or traveling along the meridian pathways. These sensations are a positive response that Acupuncturists seek to elicit. When you experience this, you are feeling the movement of your Qi.

How does it work?

According to TCM theory, the body has 14 main meridians through which a peculiar physiologic phenomena, Qi (pronounced chee), flows. Each meridian runs along the body surface, and is connected to specific organs and glands. Meridian pathways are like rivers. Where a river flows, it transports life-giving water that nourishes the land, plants and people. In the same way, meridian pathways transport life-sustaining Qi and blood to nourish every vital physiologic component and process in living organisms
Excess, deficient, or obstructed Qi causes pain and dysfunction. The meridians can be influenced by needling acupoints along their trajectories which unblocks the obstruction, influences organs, and reestablishes harmonious flow. This results in the elimination of pain, expedited healing, improved energy, biochemical balance, and overall physical and emotional well being. Indeed, modern research has confirmed that acupuncture has a strong effect on stimulating endorphins, serotonin, cortisol, ACTH, and other chemicals that our bodies produce in order to heal disease and maintain a healthy state.

What can acupuncture be used for?

Acupuncture is recognized by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as effective in treating these conditions:

Back pain is a very common ailment in Manhattan NYC. In fact, most people will experience back pain at some point in their lives, and it is the most common reason for missed work and doctor visits in the United States.

In the short term, over-the-counter or prescription medication can help to mask the pain and provide enough relief to function. The problem with painkilling drugs is when they are used long-term, which can lead to complications of liver and kidney damage, or serious dependencies with opiate-based drugs.

Fortunately, acupuncture is a natural, effective solution right here in midtown Manhattan that stops the painful branch-symptoms and corrects the root problem/s causing pain. After as few as 3 to 6 acupuncture treatments, most people will experience significant relief comparable to painkilling medications. In my practice, the patients that comply with herbal medicine generally experience faster, stronger pain relief.

check out this video from webMD.com about acupuncture being used in the medical community for back pain: http://www.webmd.com/video/back-pain-acupuncture

Here’s an article about one woman’s success story from foxnews.com:

NEW YORK: At 36, Lucy Appert has suffered through two miscarriages, a stillbirth at 8 1/2 months and, because of a rare pregnancy-related liver dysfunction, intensive illness and surgery.

Yet after enduring five painful years of trying to have their own baby, Appert and her husband Edward finally saw their dream come true last month when their son Henry was born as” premature, but healthy.

For all the fertility treatments, technologies and prenatal care available to women today, Appert credits the success of her pregnancy to an ancient Chinese secret.

“I recommend acupuncture (search) to everyone,” Appert said. “It does work. I did everything possible for years to have a baby. I almost lost hope.”

The millennias-old Asian medical practice ” in which the acupuncturist places tiny needles in various pressure points, or “Qi” (Chee), in the body to improve circulation and reduce stress has been around in the United States for years as an “alternative” treatment for numerous ailments.

But recently, acupuncture has been picking up steam as a possible remedy for female infertility, with a handful of American and European studies showing that it enhances the success rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF) (search).

Do I believe in it? Absolutely, said Dr. Paul C. Magarelli, an infertility doctor at the Reproductive Medicine & Fertility Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and co-author of an ongoing study into the use of acupuncture with IVF with Dr. Diane K. Cridennda. Cridennda is a licensed acupuncturist with a master’s degree in Oriental medicine from the International Institute of Chinese Medicine (search) who owns East Winds Acupuncture, also in Colorado Springs.

Magarelli said he joined the study at the urging of Cridennda, who had approached him about using acupuncture with IVF based on her knowledge of its history as an Eastern fertility treatment. A skeptic at first, Magarelli said he dismissed the idea for a while before signing on.

“I thought, this is rubbish ” it can’t be true,” Magarelli said. “But no matter how I look at this data, I see an improvement. … I’m pretty much a convert.”

In general, studies seem to indicate that doing acupuncture about 30 minutes before and after in vitro fertilization can increase the chance that the embryo will be implanted successfully and reduce the chance of miscarriage.

There are also indications that the effectiveness of the IVF drugs and procedure may improve if acupuncture is done about once a week in the month or two leading up to the start of IVF and then continued regularly ” once or twice a week ” during the whole cycle.

And, as in Appert’s case, there is anecdotal evidence that acupuncture can help with other fertility and pregnancy problems. Appert didn’t need IVF to conceive, but she was told she probably couldn’t carry a healthy baby to term because of her liver disorder.

But some doctors caution that there is no “magic pill” for fertility, pregnancy and IVF troubles ” whether it’s acupuncture or something else.

“The jury is still out on that,” said Dr. Eric Surrey, president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) (search), who has a practice at the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine. “I don’t think we have good data to show that acupuncture before and after the embryo transfer is truly beneficial.”

And they warn against making too much of claims that acupuncture can help with having babies.

“It’s impossible to say at this point,” said Dr. Robert Schenken, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) (search), who has a practice at the University of Texas Health Science Center. “In the absence of any controlled data, I don’t think we can come to a firm conclusion.”

Promising Research

Acupuncture seems to help some women because it improves circulation to the ovaries (search) ” which makes for healthier eggs ” and to the uterus (search), which increases the chances that the lining will be strong enough to hold those eggs to full-term.

“Acupuncture provides better circulation and better blood flow to the womb,” said Dr. Raymond Chang, director of New York’s Meridian Medical Group, who has been incorporating acupuncture into fertility treatments for the past decade. “It will give a better chance for the eggs to be nourished and therefore carried.”

There’s also the fact that acupuncture can be a stress-reliever during an emotional time.

“Trying to get pregnant is incredibly stressful,” said Victoria Koos, the acupuncturist who treated Appert at Yin and Tonic Acupuncture in New York. “They’re crossing their fingers. The longer they’re trying to get pregnant, the worse it gets … Part of [acupuncture's success] is simply relaxation. When the body is relaxed, all systems function better.”

The Colorado study Magarelli and Cridennda presented at a conference this fall is one of a series the pair have done with acupuncture and in vitro.

That one looked at 114 patients who had a good chance of IVF being effective, some who did acupuncture and some who didn’t. It found, among other things, that there were fewer miscarriages, more pregnancies and a 7 percent higher birth rate among those who got acupuncture treatment over those who didn’t, according to Magarelli.

It piggybacked off other research the team did on 147 “poor responders to IVF, which found that the pregnancy rate was 40 percent, with 11 percent more babies born, among those who did acupuncture with in vitro fertilization compared to those who didn’t.

In March, Magarelli and Cridennda released findings in Italy involving patients with an average prognosis for IVF success. Those yielded clear numbers that the pregnancy rate increased with acupuncture by 24 percent, according to Magarelli.

What got us was that now we were seeing a firm trend toward getting more people pregnant, he said.

The Colorado research seems to support some findings of two earlier studies, one in Germany by lead researcher Dr. Wolfgang E. Paulus ” published in ASRM’s Fertility and Sterility (search) in April 2002 ” and one in Sweden by lead researcher Elisabet Stener-Victorin in the 1990s.

Of course, even those who believe in acupuncture concede that while the existing studies have yielded good information, there still isn’t sufficient evidence, or a broad enough sample of patients tested, to call acupuncture a proven remedy.

“We are convinced, but scientifically you need proof ” or so-called proof,” Chang said. “There is a whole set of proof from lab experiments and animal studies to human studies, but it’s very difficult to do human studies.”

Schenken noted that even though there might be one set of data showing positive results, “it really needs to be corroborated, preferably with several different studies and different patient populations.” For example, there can be bias when the entire study sample comes from the same clinic, or when patients know they’re doing something different from usual.

Schenken said he doesn’t get asked about acupuncture often, but when patients do, “we don’t recommend it, but we do not discourage it.”

Surrey takes a similar approach. In his opinion, the data “is not bad” on the theory that acupuncture can help when administered before IVF, but as far as acupuncture generally improving fertility or helping after the embryo transfer in IVF, “there really isn’t a whole lot of data on that.”

But at the very least, “there is absolutely nothing to show that it’s harmful if it’s done with a trained and appropriately skilled acupuncturist,” he said. It’s a notion that nearly everyone in the medical field ” whether they believe in needles and Qi or not ” seems to agree upon.

Some Eastern medicine-Western medicine rivalry may come into play with how to treat reproductive problems, but Chang said he sees more resistance with the use of Chinese herbs ” which are ingested ” than he does with acupuncture. Often, it’s the in vitro specialists themselves who refer their patients to him for acupuncture after a couple of failed IVF attempts.

As for the couples trying to bring a child into the world ” particularly through a complicated, invasive procedure like IVF” anything that helps the process along is welcome.

IVF is so technical that patients feel like they are being pushed and pulled  with acupuncture, they are in a sense taking some control, Magarelli said. “Acupuncture isn’t a needle, it’s an environment.”

Added Koos: “They’re on these incredibly strong drugs that make the poor women crazy. They’re running around like Catwoman. This is to help them stay sane while they’re going through the process.”

The emotional cost of infertility comes with a hefty financial price tag as well ” in vitro fertilization can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 a cycle and generally isn’t covered by insurance; acupuncture ranges from about $30 to over $200 per treatment — Koos and Chang charge about $90 a pop” and certain health plans do cover at least a portion of it.

Meanwhile, researchers and experts in the field are excited at what they’re seeing in the studies. Chang said he’s currently working with NYU Medical Center on a trial that looks at IVF with and without acupuncture.

Appert, for her part, was at the end of her rope and felt she had nothing to lose. She started acupuncture with Koos about two months before she began trying to conceive ” with needles in her toes and a couple of liver points” and continued with the treatments throughout the pregnancy.

“The first time I went, I was completely terrified. My husband went with me and held my hand,” she said. “I could feel the muscles in my liver jump and an electric current going through my body. It was very strange but also felt right.”

She said being monitored by both her obstetrician and Koos helped reassure her about what was going on during her high-risk pregnancy.

“She would tell me things about how I was doing physically and then I would go to the doctor and he would tell me the same thing,” remembers Appert, who works as a professor.

When she got sick late in the pregnancy, both Koos and Appert’s OB/GYN were able to detect when her liver went dangerously haywire and get her to the hospital for delivery six weeks early, before the problem harmed the fetus and caused another stillbirth.

Regardless of the skeptics, Appert said she’s relieved that she was finally able to have a nearly full-term baby of her own. At 4 pounds, 6 ounces, Henry has been in intensive care but otherwise is doing “fine.”

“It really was a miracle,” the new mom gushed. “It’s one of these weird things that Western medicine can’t explain.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,154472,00.html

Fortunately, progress is being made. Awareness continues to increase and some insurance providers are simply realizing that acupuncture is cost-effective, and it makes financial sense for them to keep their policy holders healthy rather than doping them up with painkillers, masking the root problem until it degenerates until the point of surgery.

Check out this article below, written by Bruce Kennedy: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/insurance/as-medical-costs-rise-more-americans-turn-to-acupuncture/19899321/

A year after President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, many Americans are still struggling to get their insurance to cover basic medical treatments. A new report by Deloitte and Oxford Economics finds that consumers spent $363 billion dollars more for health-care goods and services in 2009 than official government statistics acknowledged — a discrepancy of nearly 15%.National Health Interview Survey, which polled Americans about their use of so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), estimated that 3.1 million U.S. adults and 150,000 children had used acupuncture during the previous year. And in the five years leading up to the survey, the use of acupuncture — the traditional Asian medical technique that involves the insertion of thin needles at skin-level, into key areas of the body — had increased among U.S. adults by 0.3%, or about 1 million people.according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards, which require needles to “be sterile, nontoxic, and labeled for single use by qualified practitioners only.”2004 Kaiser Family Foundation survey – cover acupuncture, chiropractic care and other CAM treatments.Pinpointing the Problems

Colorado lawmakers also are working on a measure that would make it easier for licensed acupuncturists to get insurance reimbursements. Many patients supposedly covered for acupuncture treatments are still turned down by their insurers, says state Sen. Luc­a Guzm¡n, one of the bill’s sponsors, who adds that the bill uncovered a disconnect between some carriers and their bureaucracies.http://srph.it/f8aSow

These out-of-pocket medical costs include “purchases that are outside of conventional therapies and treatments,” as well as other products and services not covered by insurance programs and care for others. The finding joins a growing body of evidence that more Americans are exploring often less expensive alternatives to traditional Western medicine.

A 2007

Getting Coverage for Acupuncture

Acupuncture, once considered exotic in the U.S., has been around long enough to become federally regulated. Practitioners must use needles produced and manufactured

Acupuncture has been used for centuries to treat a wide variety of ailments, including chronic pain, depression, menstrual irregularities, infertility and weight loss. Individual treatments at licensed acupuncturists can cost anywhere from $25 to $65 dollars or more per session.

While most employer-sponsored health plans cover may cover physicals, prescription drugs and mental health, only about half — according to a

But insurance companies’ reluctance to cover licensed acupuncture treatments may be changing. For the ninth straight year, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) is introducing legislation that would add acupuncture to the list of services covered by Medicare and Federal Employees Health Benefits Program participants.

“Even though the National Institutes of Health has found acupuncture to be an effective treatment for a range of serious diseases and conditions, 52 million Medicare beneficiaries and federal employees have no guaranteed access to the treatment,” Mike Morosi, Hinchey’s press secretary, writes in an email. “Congressman Hinchey will soon reintroduce the The Federal Acupuncture Coverage Act, which would ensure that those in need of care aren’t forced to choose more expensive, invasive and risky treatments with a long list of side effects simply because acupuncture isn’t covered.”

“Some of the insurance companies I spoke to were sort of dumbfounded,” she says. “They said ‘we cover that.’ But then when we got into it, we found that once something gets to the billing department end of it, then it’s like, ‘no, the reason we didn’t pay for that was because that was not a licensed [acupuncturist]…they’re not included on this list of licensed persons.”

Acupuncture treatments can vary in length, taking anywhere from several weeks to several months. But even insurance companies that cover acupuncture usually limit the number of annual visits their patients can make.

“There are some that give you [a limit of] 20 treatments per year,” says Parago Jones, clinic director at the Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Denver. “I think they’re trying to placate a certain amount of their customers, giving a real basic [acupuncture coverage] — like giving basic cable TV. It’s kind of like, why even have it? I think an insurance carrier that only gives you 20 sessions per year isn’t giving you much at all.”

Jones recommends that consumers considering acupuncture educate themselves about their local practitioners and the available treatments. He also thinks there’s a place in American health care for both Western medicine and legitimate, alternative treatments like acupuncture. “We’re in that process of those two worlds slowly merging,” he says, “and there’s still a lot of trepidation — at least from the Western side — about what we do and what we know, and what’s the best of this medicine.

Here’s an article about one woman’s success story from foxnews.com:

NEW YORK:  At 36, Lucy Appert has suffered through two miscarriages, a stillbirth at 8 1/2 months and, because of a rare pregnancy-related liver dysfunction, intensive illness and surgery.

Yet after enduring five painful years of trying to have their own baby, Appert and her husband Edward finally saw their dream come true last month when their son Henry was born — premature, but healthy.

For all the fertility treatments, technologies and prenatal care available to women today, Appert credits the success of her pregnancy to an ancient Chinese secret.

“I recommend acupuncture (search) to everyone,” Appert said. “It does work. I did everything possible for years to have a baby. I almost lost hope.”

The millennias-old Asian medical practice ” in which the acupuncturist places tiny needles in various pressure points, or “Qi” (Chee), in the body to improve circulation and reduce stress has been around in the United States for years as an “alternative” treatment for numerous ailments.

But recently, acupuncture has been picking up steam as a possible remedy for female infertility, with a handful of American and European studies showing that it enhances the success rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF) (search).

Do I believe in it? Absolutely, said Dr. Paul C. Magarelli, an infertility doctor at the Reproductive Medicine & Fertility Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and co-author of an ongoing study into the use of acupuncture with IVF with Dr. Diane K. Cridennda. Cridennda is a licensed acupuncturist with a master’s degree in Oriental medicine from the International Institute of Chinese Medicine (search) who owns East Winds Acupuncture, also in Colorado Springs.

Magarelli said he joined the study at the urging of Cridennda, who had approached him about using acupuncture with IVF based on her knowledge of its history as an Eastern fertility treatment. A skeptic at first, Magarelli said he dismissed the idea for a while before signing on. 

“I thought, this is rubbish ” it can’t be true,” Magarelli said. “But no matter how I look at this data, I see an improvement. … I’m pretty much a convert.”

In general, studies seem to indicate that doing acupuncture about 30 minutes before and after in vitro fertilization can increase the chance that the embryo will be implanted successfully and reduce the chance of miscarriage.

There are also indications that the effectiveness of the IVF drugs and procedure may improve if acupuncture is done about once a week in the month or two leading up to the start of IVF and then continued regularly — once or twice a week — during the whole cycle.

And, as in Appert’s case, there is anecdotal evidence that acupuncture can help with other fertility and pregnancy problems. Appert didn’t need IVF to conceive, but she was told she probably couldn’t carry a healthy baby to term because of her liver disorder.

But some doctors caution that there is no “magic pill” for fertility, pregnancy and IVF troubles ” whether it’s acupuncture or something else.

“The jury is still out on that,” said Dr. Eric Surrey, president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) (search), who has a practice at the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine. “I don’t think we have good data to show that acupuncture before and after the embryo transfer is truly beneficial.”

And they warn against making too much of claims that acupuncture can help with having babies.

“It’s impossible to say at this point,” said Dr. Robert Schenken, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) (search), who has a practice at the University of Texas Health Science Center. “In the absence of any controlled data, I don’t think we can come to a firm conclusion.”

Promising Research

Acupuncture seems to help some women because it improves circulation to the ovaries (search) ” which makes for healthier eggs ” and to the uterus (search), which increases the chances that the lining will be strong enough to hold those eggs to full-term.

“Acupuncture provides better circulation and better blood flow to the womb,” said Dr. Raymond Chang, director of New York’s Meridian Medical Group, who has been incorporating acupuncture into fertility treatments for the past decade. “It will give a better chance for the eggs to be nourished and therefore carried.”

There’s also the fact that acupuncture can be a stress-reliever during an emotional time.

“Trying to get pregnant is incredibly stressful,” said Victoria Koos, the acupuncturist who treated Appert at Yin and Tonic Acupuncture in New York. “They’re crossing their fingers. The longer they’re trying to get pregnant, the worse it gets … Part of [acupuncture's success] is simply relaxation. When the body is relaxed, all systems function better.”

The Colorado study Magarelli and Cridennda presented at a conference this fall is one of a series the pair have done with acupuncture and in vitro.

That one looked at 114 patients who had a good chance of IVF being effective, some who did acupuncture and some who didn’t. It found, among other things, that there were fewer miscarriages, more pregnancies and a 7 percent higher birth rate among those who got acupuncture treatment over those who didn’t, according to Magarelli.

It piggybacked off other research the team did on 147 poor responders to IVF, which found that the pregnancy rate was 40 percent, with 11 percent more babies born, among those who did acupuncture with in vitro fertilization compared to those who didn’t.

In March, Magarelli and Cridennda released findings in Italy involving patients with an average prognosis for IVF success. Those yielded clear numbers that the pregnancy rate increased with acupuncture by 24 percent, according to Magarelli.

What got us was that now we were seeing a firm trend toward getting more people pregnant, he said.

The Colorado research seems to support some findings of two earlier studies, one in Germany by lead researcher Dr. Wolfgang E. Paulus ” published in ASRM’s Fertility and Sterility (search) in April 2002  and one in Sweden by lead researcher Elisabet Stener-Victorin in the 1990s.

Of course, even those who believe in acupuncture concede that while the existing studies have yielded good information, there still isn’t sufficient evidence, or a broad enough sample of patients tested, to call acupuncture a proven remedy.

“We are convinced, but scientifically you need proof ” or so-called proof,” Chang said. “There is a whole set of proof from lab experiments and animal studies to human studies, but it’s very difficult to do human studies.”

Schenken noted that even though there might be one set of data showing positive results, “it really needs to be corroborated, preferably with several different studies and different patient populations.” For example, there can be bias when the entire study sample comes from the same clinic, or when patients know they’re doing something different from usual.

Schenken said he doesn’t get asked about acupuncture often, but when patients do, “we don’t recommend it, but we do not discourage it.”

Surrey takes a similar approach. In his opinion, the data “is not bad” on the theory that acupuncture can help when administered before IVF, but as far as acupuncture generally improving fertility or helping after the embryo transfer in IVF, “there really isn’t a whole lot of data on that.”

But at the very least, “there is absolutely nothing to show that it’s harmful if it’s done with a trained and appropriately skilled acupuncturist,” he said. It’s a notion that nearly everyone in the medical field ” whether they believe in needles and Qi or not ” seems to agree upon.

Some Eastern medicine-Western medicine rivalry may come into play with how to treat reproductive problems, but Chang said he sees more resistance with the use of Chinese herbs ” which are ingested ” than he does with acupuncture. Often, it’s the in vitro specialists themselves who refer their patients to him for acupuncture after a couple of failed IVF attempts.

As for the couples trying to bring a child into the world ” particularly through a complicated, invasive procedure like IVF” anything that helps the process along is welcome.

IVF is so technical that patients feel like they are being pushed and pulled  with acupuncture, they are in a sense taking some control, Magarelli said. “Acupuncture isn’t a needle, it’s an environment.”

Added Koos: “They’re on these incredibly strong drugs that make the poor women crazy. They’re running around like Catwoman. This is to help them stay sane while they’re going through the process.”

The emotional cost of infertility comes with a hefty financial price tag as well ” in vitro fertilization can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 a cycle and generally isn’t covered by insurance; acupuncture ranges from about $30 to over $200 per treatment ” Koos and Chang charge about $90 a pop ” and certain health plans do cover at least a portion of it.

Meanwhile, researchers and experts in the field are excited at what they’re seeing in the studies. Chang said he’s currently working with NYU Medical Center on a trial that looks at IVF with and without acupuncture.

Appert, for her part, was at the end of her rope and felt she had nothing to lose. She started acupuncture with Koos about two months before she began trying to conceive ” with needles in her toes and a couple of liver points ” and continued with the treatments throughout the pregnancy.

“The first time I went, I was completely terrified. My husband went with me and held my hand,” she said. “I could feel the muscles in my liver jump and an electric current going through my body. It was very strange but also felt right.”

She said being monitored by both her obstetrician and Koos helped reassure her about what was going on during her high-risk pregnancy.

“She would tell me things about how I was doing physically and then I would go to the doctor and he would tell me the same thing,” remembers Appert, who works as a professor.

When she got sick late in the pregnancy, both Koos and Appert’s OB/GYN were able to detect when her liver went dangerously haywire and get her to the hospital for delivery six weeks early, before the problem harmed the fetus and caused another stillbirth.

Regardless of the skeptics, Appert said she’s relieved that she was finally able to have a nearly full-term baby of her own. At 4 pounds, 6 ounces, Henry has been in intensive care but otherwise is doing “fine.”

“It really was a miracle,” the new mom gushed. “It’s one of these weird things that Western medicine can’t explain.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,154472,00.html

What is acupuncture?

Acupuncture is a modality of treatment from a 2500+ year old system of medicine originated in ancient China, called “Traditional Chinese Medicine” (TCM). In recent years, this time-honored healing art has gained wide acceptance as a powerful complement to conventional modern medicine. An acupuncturist will place fine, sterile, disposable needles at specific acupoints on the body. This activates the body’s Qi and promotes natural healing by enhancing recuperative power, immunity and physical and emotional health. The National Institute of Health, the World Health Organization, and other national and international health and medical bodies have come to integrate and promote acupuncture as a safe, effective, and low-cost method of treatment for a wide variety of disorders.  

Does it hurt?

The sensation of an acupuncture needle varies. The needles are hair thin, and you may feel a slight pinch as it is inserted, but generally it is painless. Once inserted, you may begin to feel sensations of warmth, heaviness, cramping, tingling, or electric sensations around the needle or traveling along the meridian pathways. These sensations are a positive response that Acupuncturists seek to elicit. When you experience this, you are feeling the movement of your Qi.

How does it work?

According to TCM theory, the body has 14 main meridians through which a peculiar physiologic phenomena, Qi (pronounced “chee”), flows. Each meridian runs along the body surface, and is connected to specific organs and glands. Meridian pathways are like rivers. Where a river flows, it transports life-giving water that nourishes the land, plants and people. In the same way, meridian pathways transport life-sustaining Qi and blood to nourish every vital physiologic component and process in living organisms
Excess, deficient, or obstructed Qi causes pain and dysfunction. The meridians can be influenced by needling acupoints along their trajectories which unblocks the obstruction, influences organs, and reestablishes harmonious flow. This results in the elimination of pain, expedited healing, improved energy, biochemical balance, and overall physical and emotional well being. Indeed, modern research has confirmed that acupuncture has a strong effect on stimulating endorphins, serotonin, cortisol, ACTH, and other chemicals that our bodies produce in order to heal disease and maintain a healthy state.

What can acupuncture be used for?

Acupuncture is recognized by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as effective in treating these conditions:

Back pain is a very common ailment in Manhattan NYC. In fact, most people will experience back pain at some point in their lives, and it is the most common reason for missed work and doctor visits in the United States.

In the short term, over-the-counter or prescription medication can help to mask the pain and provide enough relief to function. The problem with painkilling drugs is when they are used long-term, which can lead to complications of liver and kidney damage, or serious dependencies with opiate-based drugs.

Fortunately, acupuncture is a natural, effective solution right here in midtown Manhattan that stops the painful branch-symptoms and corrects the root problem/s causing pain.  After as few as 3 to 6 acupuncture treatments, most people will experience significant relief comparable to painkilling medications. In my practice, the patients that comply with herbal medicine generally experience faster, stronger pain relief.

check out this video from webMD.com about acupuncture being used in the medical community for back pain: http://www.webmd.com/video/back-pain-acupuncture