Acupuncture

Your practitioner utilizes sterile disposable needles to access the patient’s “QI” or “vital energy”. The needles are placed in points found along the channels that run throughout the entire body. The channels are connected to internal organs as well as to the exterior body (skin, tendons, muscles, sensory organs…).

There are different styles of Acupuncture, some better suited to certain conditions versus others. Your practitioner offers two different styles of Acupuncture to provide his patients with the best options to meet their needs.

During your assessment you and your practitioner will decide what style of Acupuncture is best suited to achieve your goals.

Traditional Acupuncture

The most well-known of Chinese Medicine therapies, acupuncture refers to the insertion of hair-thin, sterile, single use steel needles into precise muscular points and areas of the body, known as ‘acupuncture points’.

Researchers have developed two hypotheses for how acupuncture relieves pain. One holds that the needle stimulates pain-sensing nerves, which trigger the brain to release opiumlike compounds called endorphins that circulate in the body.

The other holds that acupuncture works through a placebo effect, in which the patient’s thinking releases endorphins.

Electro-acupuncture

Electro-acupuncture (sometimes known as ‘e-stim’) is a modern acupuncture treatment technique. Like traditional acupuncture, thin needles are inserted into specific acupoints and tight muscles. The key difference is that in this case, two or more needles are attached to a device that generates a gentle pulse through the muscle.

Modern studies of electro-acupuncture have shown that it significantly alleviated inflammatory, neuropathic, and organ related pain in animal models.