Medical Acupuncture
What is Medical Acupuncture?
The World Health Organization recognizes the use of acupuncture as an effective pain modality In medical acupuncture, your practitioner treats you only after a conventional medical/neuro-functional diagnosis has been made. The practitioner will use acupuncture as a treatment modality along with other therapeutic approaches, as needed. The contemporary acupuncture practitioner applies treatment following a conventional (scientific) view and regards the acupuncture as having certain local tissue effects as well as providing segmental analgesia, extra-segmental analgesia, as well as central regulatory effects on the nervous system.
How Does Medical Acupuncture Work?
Acupuncture produces many of its effects by stimulating nerve receptors in skin and muscle. Various substances are released that cause an increase of local blood flow that encourages tissue healing. Acupuncture helps to reduce pain locally where the needles are inserted and throughout the body while having calming effect of the nervous system. This modality can also inactivate myofascial trigger points, while affecting pain perception in the frontal cortex.
Medical acupuncture takes an ancient therapy and re-defines its mechanisms and effects using present-day scientific understanding of human physiology.