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Acupuncture
Prices may vary by location. Please check with the individual location for specific offerings and pricing information.
History
Acupuncture has been practiced in Asia for over 2000 years and constitutes the oldest form of documented medical practice in the world!
With no other health care options at the time, acupuncturists had to specialize and become true masters in their areas of expertise. Today, there are many conditions that acupuncture excels in treating and our multi-practitioner practice allows us to treat many of these challenging conditions which you can read more about here.
What to Expect
By inserting tiny pins into specific areas of the body, a healing response is initiated in the individual. The pins are surgical stainless steel, single use and have nothing on them. Their only purpose is to encourage your body to begin a healing process that it is yearning for.
How does it work?
There are multiple physical improvements and healing mechanisms that are initiated through the use of acupuncture, but the following 3 areas are extremely well documented and researched.
Nerve Regeneration
Findings published in Neural Regeneration Research demonstrate that acupuncture causes injured motor nerves to repair. Electromyographic nerve conduction tests of acupuncture patients with nerve injuries document “an effective response” in 80% of patients participating in the study. The researchers note that acupuncture counteracts this effect citing that it successfully increases “acetylcholinesterase expression in spinal cord tissue after peripheral nerve injury.” As a result, the researchers suggest that this may be an important mechanism by which acupuncture promotes the healing of peripheral nerves.(1)
Increased Blood Flow
Acupuncture has long been known to improve circulation to various tissues of the body which provides nutrients, oxygen and lubrication to the body where it needs it. What we now know through research is that the circulation improvements are not simply local to the acupuncture points, but with correct use of specific locations, they can improve blood flow throughout the entire body. Using multi-channel photoplethysmography, the researchers demonstrate that needling acupuncture point ST36 (Zusanli) induces “significant elevations in whole body peripheral blood flow and parasympathetic activities after acupuncture at Zusanli.” (2)
Did you know that Acupuncture is often covered by insurance?
Brain Chemical hormonal regulation
Gaseous neurotransmitters such as carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide are a vital part of human physiology. They pass through membranes, communicate with other nerves and act directly on cells. Nitric oxide in particular tells them to start producing energy and turn fat into heat. In research by Jia-Xu Chen and Sheng-Xing Ma(3), nitric oxide levels were found to be 2-3 times higher on acupuncture points than at other places on the skin’s surface. Knowing the specific location of these points, which points are most relevant per condition and per individual and how to release those points is where an acupuncturist can help influence your body’s natural healing function.
By controlling the flow of a gasotransmitter called nitric oxide, acupuncturists can influence the body’s rate of metabolism and inflammation. Acupuncturists use needling techniques to control the flow of energy production by releasing or containing gas at strategic exits. This is similar to your car exiting the highway at the appropriate off ramp in order to most efficiently arrive at your destination.
If you have a traffic jam, you have a lot of power available in those cars. Each car can go faster than 100 miles per hour and pull a great deal of weight. Unfortunately, within the context of a traffic jam, each idle car creates a road block rather than a solution for transportation since the cars can’t travel at their optimum speed. The problem isn’t a lack of energy, it’s a problem of movement.
The key to unlocking all that power is to reduce the number of cars on the road. This optimizes the number of cars that can work efficiently for transportation. In the same way, your body requires an even flow gasotransmitters in order to do its best work. Inserting a needle creates an “off ramp” for the extra gasotransmitter build up to escape and improve the ergonomics of its flow throughout the body.
- Gh, He, Ruan Jw, Zeng Ys, X. Zhou, Y. Ding, and Zhou Gh. "Improvement in acupoint selection for acupuncture of nerves surrounding the injury site: electro-acupuncture with Governor vessel with local meridian acupoints." Neural Regeneration Research 10, no. 1 (2015): 128
- Yang, Cheng-Chan, Wei-You Zhuang, and Hsien-Tsai Wu. "Assessment of the impact of acupuncture on peripheral blood flow with multi-channel photoplethysmography." In Electron Devices and Solid-State Circuits (EDSSC), 2014 IEEE International Conference on, pp. 1-2. IEEE, 2014.
- Miles, Andrew & Qiu, Xue Lan. “Enlightenweight.”