Acupuncture was imported from the East as a treatment of Chinese medicine that has been used in healing for thousands of years. And now it's becoming as Western as, well, the West.
It's taken a long time for our culture to get past the foreign flavor of Chinese medicine, particularly this astounding practice of sticking needles into the skin.
It took a certain kind of bravery or recklessness for the first guinea pigs in North America to lay down for the needles. But I suspect that for many of these pioneers, revelation came quickly, and willingness for a repeat performance followed on the heels of that revelation.
Or so it was for me, at any rate. If you've ever had to live with extraordinary pain for long periods of time, and then seen acupuncture make it disappear, you'll understand the extreme about-face.
I've been receiving acupuncture treatments for three years and it's made a difference in health problems that nothing else had even touched. You have nothing to lose but your pain and the limitations to your health.
This experience of mine is being repeated exponentially every day here in North America. And so unfolds the westernization of acupuncture.
We may not understand the Eastern philosophy and explanations as to what this therapy does and how it does it. We don't have real equivalents in translation for concepts like "qi" or "yin" and "yang".
But we're very busily figuring out from a western perspective, just what is going on here and how to make the best use of it. Lately we've made some headway in the ways we're familiar and comfortable with.
For example, take electroacupuncture. Electroacupuncture is actually an Eastern development but it fits like a hand in a glove with the western tendency to turn up the juice. We're intrigued by the discovery that we can plug this thing in and amp it up.
Substitute acupuncture needles with electrodes and you have the equivalent of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) therapy.
To perform electroacupuncture, acupuncture needles are inserted on specific spots along the meridians of the body. The practitioner then attaches each needle with clips to a machine that puts out continuous electric pulses.
Pairs of needles are used so impulses can pass from one needle to another. The current stimulates a larger area than an acupuncture needle alone can do.
The patient may feel some tingling. If the sensation is more than that, the practitioner can adjust the amount of current for the patient's comfort and optimal benefit. Treatment usually lasts between 10 and 30 minutes.
People with heart conditions, or who have epilepsy or seizures should not have electroacupuncture. Needles should not be used on the patient's head or throat or over their heart, or down the midline of the body from nose to navel.
Western researchers have been busily dissecting the science behind this Oriental art of acupuncture. Researchers have discovered that acupuncture seems to stimulate adenosine, which regulates sleep, benefits the heart and reduces inflammation.
Adenosine also tempers pain, causing the brain to send out natural pain-killing endorphins. The level of adenosine in tissues near the acupuncture needles was 24 times higher during and after acupuncture than it was before.
Our western researchers have learned that acupuncture has a positive effect on the autonomic nervous system, and the parasympathetic nervous system. It affects the peripheral nervous system, nerves that aren't connected to the brain and spinal cord.
Acupuncture stimulates production of endorphins as well as the neurotransmitter serotonin, all of which increase a sense of well-being.
Other research suggests that transcutaneous electric acupoint stimulation (TEAS) treatments may help people addicted to opioids. Only 29 percent who had received TEAS treatments used opioids again later. Of those who received placebo treatments, 65 percent went back to opioid use.
Those who received the real treatments were half as likely to use any drugs later as those who received placebo, and also had less pain and better health afterward.
Ultimately having western science spreading itself all over acupuncture can only be a good thing. We'll all reap the benefits of this blending of what is the best of both worlds as East meets West.
Resources:
Acupuncture Improves Exercise Tolerance in Heart Patients, German Study Finds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100701103409.htm
All About Acupuncture: Electro Acupuncture
http://www.all-about-acupuncture.com/acupuncture-intro-electro-acupuncture.html
Electroacupuncture Shows Effect On Pain Perception
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161233.php
Acupuncture Today: Electroacupuncture
http://acupuncturetoday.com/abc/electroacupuncture.php
Acupuncture Improves Exercise Tolerance in Heart Patients, German Study Finds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100701103409.htm
A Form of Acupuncture May Help in Opioid Addiction
http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/010410.htm?nav
Acupunture's Molecular Effects Pinned Down: New Insights Spur Effort to Boost Treatment's Impact Significantly
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100530144021.htm
Visit Jody's website and blog at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger