How does acupuncture work?

Any acupuncture session will start with a comprehensive patient interview. as a practitioner, once I understands the nature of the disharmony presented, I will choose suitable acupuncture points based on their actions.

Needles are then inserted through the skin and manipulated to achieve that required action on the Qi of that channel. Certain points are particular suitable to treat acute and painful conditions, while others might be more suitable to treat chronic problems. These functions have been discovered over centuries of experience and have proven to be successful in clinical practice.

What is an acupuncture point?

An acupuncture point is an access point to the acupuncture channels. The channels are the pathways through which Qi and blood circulate the body. The channels also connect the organs in the deepest levels of the body with skin and flesh, tendons and bones, as well as the head and the limbs and all the sense organs; thus “linking all the tissues and structures of the body into an integrated whole.”

There are various classifications of acupuncture points that allow different types of “access”. Without going into detail on point categories, it can be understood that, in general, points can be used to respond to dysfunction in the body; through the pathways of the channel on which the point lies as well as through further interconnected pathways between the channels deeper inside the body.

Is acupuncture safe?

When practiced correctly and responsibly by a trained practitioner, is absolutely safe.

A survey undertaken by the British Acupuncture Council, which found the serious-adverse-effect rate to be between 0 and 1.1 per 10,000 treatments and the minor-adverse-effect rate at 1.3 per 1000. Minor adverse effects are usually limited to bleeding or bruising.

Serious events can be completely avoided through adequate training and comprehensive knowledge of anatomy; the use of stainless steel, sterile disposable needles; aseptic techniques; and being fully aware and paying attention as a practitioner.

Acupuncture safety is to be viewed in general as well as in relation to the condition being treated and the risk of alternative treatment methods. The treatment can often be considered less invasive than, for example, surgery. Looking at data from 28 randomly selected hospitals in Australia in a 1992 study, the adverse-event-rate for surgical admissions in Australia was found to be just under 22%. With no recovery time, no anaesthetics and much lower adverse-events-rates; acupuncture appears a promising alternative.

Can acupuncture points be explained from a biomedical perspective?

Acupuncture sends impulses to the spinal cord, midbrain and pituitary-hypothalamus in the diencephalon by activating small myelinated nerve fibres; suggesting pain relief in acupuncture maybe achieved through endorphin release caused by acupuncture stimulus.

Acupuncture points have further been found to correspond to regions where motor nerves enter skeletal muscle. At acupuncture point locations there appears to be a great density of motor nerve terminal elements at the surface. Histologically there are more nerves and blood vessels at the acupuncture point than at the surrounding tissue.

The idea of Qi as “energy” circulating the body, as discussed above, could well be linked up with the biomedical understanding of nerve impulses as “electricity” travelling through the body; and then there is a higher density of blood vessels as well.