Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a treatment method used in Oriental Medicine. Acupuncture practitioners use thin, sterile needles inserted in precise areas of the body to initiate healing and promote health. Acupuncture networks in the body are akin to a telegraph system giving instructions to the body/mind that enables it to repair itself and correct imbalance. There are over 370 pre-defined acupoints mapped on the human body and innumerable trigger points that come and go with time and injury. Acupuncture and the traditional medicine from which it comes offer a unique analysis of ailments and disorders and incorporate several different treatment methods, one of which is acupuncture. Today, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are the most widely used medical system in the world.

Acupuncture is extremely useful in relieving stress. According to many health experts, stress causes or complicates most modern diseases. In order for acupuncture to be effective, an individual will need to commit to regular treatments. By lowering the cost of treatment, MetroWest Whole Health aspires to help people make that commitment to their health.

Your acupuncturist may treat different acupoints each time you come for a treatment as your diagnosis changes and your condition improves. An average session involves the acupuncturist needling 5-15 points. Each acupoint prescription is individually tailored to the patient, their complaint, and the diagnosis made during the patient's intake. Needles generally are retained for 30-60 minutes and are manipulated during that time to attain the desired therapeutic result.

There are many acupuncture techniques including electro-acupuncture, laser acupuncture and microsystems-based acupuncture (e.g., Ear, Scalp, Hand). The styles of acupuncture practiced at MetroWest Whole Health allow you to receive treatment for as long as you want. Most people learn to sense when the treatment is done. This can vary from 20 minutes to an hour or more. Many people fall asleep, and wake feeling refreshed.

Acupuncture has been a community-based medicine for most of its long history. For acupuncture to be most effective, patients need to receive it frequently and regularly. While insurance is beginning to provide coverage for acupuncture, patients need to receive acupuncture far more frequently and regularly than most insurance plans will pay for. As acupuncture has moved toward the mainstream, it has been forced into a paradigm of private, one-on-one treatments and high prices, which has decreased not only patient access but treatment efficacy.

At MetroWest Whole Health acupuncture is personalized, deeply relaxing, and effective.

Research Perspectives: US & International
Over the last four decades in which acupuncture has developed in the U.S., it has been proven to be not only exceptionally safe when performed by licensed professionals, but effective in an increasing body of scientific studies.

Statement by the US National Institutes of Health: The NIH has funded research on Acupuncture for many years. After considerable evaluation, the NIH published its 1997 Consensus Statement on Acuuncture. From research on acupuncture the NIH reported that "[p]romising results have emerged, for example, [demonstrating the] efficacy of acupuncture in adult post-operative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in post-operative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma where acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program. Further research is likely to uncover additional areas where acupuncture interventions will be useful. See NIH Consensus Statement on Acupuncture, Nov 3-5, 1997

Statement by the World Health Organization: The effectiveness of acupuncture analgesia (pain control) has already been established in controlled clinical studies. Acupuncture analgesia works better than a placebo for most kinds of pain, and its effective rate in the treatment of chronic pain is comparable with that of morphine.

Because of the side-effects of long-term drug therapy for pain and the risks of dependence, acupuncture analgesia can be regarded as the method of choice for treating many chronically painful conditions. (WHO. Acupuncture: Review and Anylsis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials, 2002).