Pain
Acupuncture and the Treatment of Pain
Many people seek acupuncture for pain relief. Pain has many presentations. The
first thing you need to understand about pain is it has a specific purpose. The purpose of pain is to inform you
that something is wrong. A sore
throat, headache, and back pain have one thing in common; each condition sends a
pain signal to your brain. When the pain signal reaches the brain the patient
will take action ether consciously and/or subconsciously.
Pain can be acute, chronic, or recurring in nature. By acute we mean the injury or
illness is recent. By chronic we mean you have had the condition for an extended
period of time and require ongoing treatment. A recurring illness is one that you experience every once and awhile, for
example many people have back pain in spring time or allergies in fall.
Myth 1: There is a myth that acupuncture can stop pain permanently and keep your
medical doctors from discovering a more serious underlying condition.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
You can’t stop the pain signal forever, without resolving the underlying
problem. Acupuncture like pain
medication is powerful but each has limits. Some patients need treatment for extended periods of time and some
patients need treatment permanently to manage pain.
To help determine the type of treatment you should receive, I will ask you if the pain feels
better with warmth, better with cold, better with movement, better with rest, or
if the pain is constant and never changes.
Below are classic pain patterns frequently seen in my office, I’ve given
the pattern non Chinese medical names to help aide the understanding of my work.
Acupuncture Fixing the Body
This is most common treatment performed by acupuncturists. Using acupuncture
pins the acupuncturist will trigger your body’s natural repair systems. Normally when you have an injury, you
have pain, redness and swelling, stiffness, followed by recovery. Frequently after the first
acupuncture treatment you will be stiff and sometimes feel worse initially and
then a few days later the patient reports improvement in the condition. This
stiffness occurs because you body thinks you just sustained another injury and
is keeping you still while it conducts repairs. In this situation the acupuncturist is using your body’s own systems to
do the repairs.
Turning off the Pain Signal
Sometimes the original condition has been resolved by the body, ether
naturally or by surgery, drug therapy, or other treatment but the pain signal
keeps firing causing the patient to feel as if they still have the original
illness or condition. I have
treated a number of patients like this; they still have the pain after
undergoing a successful surgery for example. These patients are amazed when after a single treatment the pain signal
just stops. This resolution can
occur while the patient lies on the table!
Advantage Body
When an illness and/or pain exhaust the patient physically and/or
emotionally, the stress and fatigue can keep the body from healing.
When this pattern presents in my office I
do whatever treatment is necessary, acupuncture and electric stimulation is
common, to give the patient pain relief. The goal is to provide enough relief, for a long enough period of time,
for the body to gain an advantage and finally finish repairing the injury.
Deficiency Pain
A deficiency pain condition is defined as an illness that feels better with
warmth, movement, and pressure. What
causes a deficiency pain problem? Sometimes the body does not have the time or resources available to completely
heal an injury when it first occurs. The patient can be fatigued, stressed, have poor eating habits, respiratory
conditions, congenital weakness, or simply physically inactive for a long period
of time making the patient prone to injury. In this pain presentation the focus of the acupuncture treatment is to
first put the organ systems back into balance and help the patient move towards
a healthy life style. With short
periods of pain relief the patient feels better and the opportunity to make
change.
One Problem Causes Many Problems
There are times when one injury causes many problems. When this pattern presents you need
to pick your battles. Sometimes treating the second, third, and forth, condition
gives the body the ability to finally devote all its attention to the original
problem. For example, you hurt your foot and then a month later you have a knee
problem, and two month later you hip hurts, and four months later your back
hurts. Sometimes we need to focus on the secondary conditions before focusing on
the cause.
The reverse is also true, sometimes you treat the primary issue and all the
secondary conditions resolve very quickly. This is part of the art and science of being a health care provider.
Decrease Swelling & Moving Blood
Many injuries require increased blood flow to the affected area to speed
recovery or provide pain relief. The treatment for this condition requires a
treatment that improves circulation. What
is commonly called moving blood and qi by acupuncturists. There is a saying in Chinese Medicine
“where there is no movement, there is pain.” To
decrease swelling around an injury an acupuncturist may use the treatment
principle called draining dampness. Many
times I combine the treatment principle moving blood and draining dampness for
pain due to swelling.
How many acupuncture treatments do I need?
A good rule of thumb is if you feel 25% improvement after one treatment
then four visits will be required. A 50% improvement after the first visit then
you will probably require two or three treatments.
In the event, you only feel a 10%
improvement after one office visit then ten treatments will be required. Although I wish I could help everyone
some conditions require a team approach and others simple don’t respond to
acupuncture.
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