Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a holistic health technique that stems from Traditional Chinese Medicine practices in which our trained physician, Dr. Hameed, will stimulate specific points on the body by inserting thin needles into the skin. The needles are left in place, with either a heat lR lamp over them or electric stimulation for a minimum of 20 minutes.
Acupuncture is especially helpful for gynecological problems. Women of all ages can benefit from regulating the menstrual cycle, and reducing cramps and PMS. Irritability, depression, bloating, and pain with the period are often greatly reduced within a few months.
What Is Acupuncture Able to Treat? ▼
- muscle spasms and pain
- chronic back problems and pain
- headaches, including reducing the frequency and intensity of migraines
- neck pain
- osteoarthritis
- knee pain
- allergies
- digestive problems
- mood disorders
- depression and anxiety
- reproductive problems
Is Acupuncture Safe? ▼
The National Institute of Health does consider acupuncture to be safe when performed by an experienced, well-trained practitioner using a clean needle technique. The good news is that the FDA regulates acupuncture needles as medical devices and requires that the needles be “sterile, nontoxic, and labeled for single use by qualified practitioners only.”
Needle size and insertion depth depend upon the nature of the problem. Depths can be from 0.2 to 3 inches. Also taken into consideration are the patient’s size, age, and constitution. Scientific research has discovered that acupuncture points show a variety of unique bioelectric properties.
How Does Acupuncture Work? ▼
Acupuncture is considered to be a family of procedures, not one single exact approach to pain or disease management. All acupuncture practices involve the stimulation of specific points on the body using a variety of techniques, usually needles. The type of acupuncture that has been studied most so far in clinical, scientific research settings is the type that uses thin, solid, metal needles to lightly puncture the skin.
Acupuncture is usually done by hand, with a trained practitioner carefully inserting the needles into specific points in the body very shallowly into the skin. Normally about 10 to 20 thin needles are used at one time. Around 5 needles, put together, are so small that they are small enough to fit inside of a normal-sized needle that would be used to take blood, making the process pretty painless for most people.
There are also types of acupuncture that use light electrical stimulations that flow through the needles or no needles at all. For example, acupressure is often thought of as simply “acupuncture without the needles” and uses targeted massage-type techniques to stimulate energy in the body by pressing on certain points.