Acupuncture – Concord Center Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine

Acupuncture

Acupuncture has been helping people reach their highest potential for over 3,000 years. If you are suffering from pain, stress, migraines, allergies, infertility or hormonal imbalances or if you have a child that is struggling with asthma, ADD/ADHD, digestive problems or anxiety, acupuncture offers a drug-free, time-tested and natural solution for these problems and many others.

Acupuncture has been scientifically shown to improve circulation, speed healing, relieve pain, balance hormones, reduce stress and improve the immune system.

Acupuncture addresses both the symptoms and the root of health problems, treating a large number of physical and emotional disorders with minimal to no side-effects. Acupuncture has been scientifically shown to improve circulation, speed healing, relieve pain, balance hormones, reduce stress and improve the immune system. Because acupuncture can affect and balance these different aspects of your biology, it can treat the full range of health problems in all ages, from the prevention and treatment of internal diseases, to relieving pain.

Acupuncture is a part of a comprehensive medical system known as Chinese Medicine, and is often administered in conjunction with Chinese herbal medicine, exercises, nutritional recommendations or suggestions for a healthier lifestyle.

Acupuncture relieves pain and stress and brings your body back into balance. Once you start feeling better, it then becomes easier to make the healthy life choices that you’ve been wanting to make.

Many of our patients are surprised by how profoundly relaxed they feel during their acupuncture treatment. This is because acupuncture creates a “relaxation effect,” which helps reverse the effects of stress on your body. When we treat children or people that are a bit anxious about the needles, the most frequent thing they say after the first needle is applied is “That was it?” Other comments we frequently hear from our patients is “I never nap during the day expect during my acupuncture treatment” or “It’s like magic… I can’t believe the pain is gone!”

Many of our patients are surprised by how profoundly relaxed they feel during their acupuncture treatment.

Acupuncture relieves pain and stress and brings your body back into balance. Once you start feeling better, it then becomes easier to make the healthy life choices that you’ve been wanting to make, and that is no small contribution to living a healthier and happier life.

How Acupuncture Works

Acupuncturists view the body as being made up of a network of channels or meridians that contain Qi. By using very thin, sterile, stainless steel needles, acupuncture is able to conduct this Qi or energy within your body and adjust or unblock the flow of this energy. By balancing the flow of Qi in your body, acupuncture relieves pain and stress and restores the proper internal balance of your body, allowing your body to better heal itself, naturally.

By balancing the flow of Qi in your body, acupuncture relieves pain and stress and restores the proper internal balance of your body, allowing your body to better heal itself, naturally.

Many skeptics discredit acupuncture because the existence of Qi has not been validated scientifically. However, you do not need to believe in Qi or understand what Qi is to understand how acupuncture works. From a scientific standpoint, researchers have been trying to determine just how acupuncture works since Dr. Ji-Sheng Han began his pioneering research in 1965. Most research indicates that acupuncture works by affecting our central nervous system. In particular, acupuncture has been shown to release chemical messengers (neuropeptides and neurotransmitters) into our body, which in turn affect the release, absorption, breakdown and re-uptake of other chemicals and hormones, such as amino acids, endorphins, serotonin, endogenous opioids and insulin into our central nervous system, thus modulating pain, immune responses and hormones as well as activating other self-healing mechanisms within the body. (1)

Acupuncture has been shown to release chemical messengers (neuropeptides and neurotransmitters) into our body, which in turn affect the release, absorption, breakdown and re-uptake of other chemicals and hormones, such as amino acids, endorphins, serotonin, endogenous opioids and insulin into our central nervous system, thus modulating pain, immune responses and hormones as well as activating other self-healing mechanisms within the body.

A recent study indicates that the stretching or wrapping of connective tissue around the acupuncture needle can affect the release of neuropeptides and is one way that acupuncture can affect our central nervous system (2).

Functional MRI (fMRI) studies have also confirmed the specificity of many acupuncture points, as well as the role of the central nervous system in how acupuncture works. For example, an acupuncture point used for the treatment of vision problems or pain, when stimulated with acupuncture needles, caused visual or pain relieving areas in the brain to light up in the fMRI images (3).

Overall the results of acupuncture have proven to be measurable and affect many systems of the body such as your endocrine system, nervous system, immune system and circulatory system. Additionally, there is much research confirming what many patients experience, that acupuncture is effective in treating many types of pain, arthritis, nausea, tension headaches, migraines, hot flashes, allergies and much more!

Overall the results of acupuncture have proven to be measurable and affect many systems of the body such as your endocrine system, nervous system, immune system and circulatory system.

The Cochrane Collaboration, an esteemed independent scientific review board has concluded that there is now sufficient evidence indicating that acupuncture is effective in the treatment of migraines (4), tension-type headaches (5), post-operative (6) or chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting (7), neck pain (8) and low back pain (9).

Conditions Treated by Acupuncture

Both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recognize acupuncture as a viable treatment method for a number of medical conditions.

  • addiction
  • anxiety
  • arthritis
  • asthma
  • bronchitis
  • cancer & chemotherapy
    support
  • carpal tunnel syndrome
  • chronic fatigue
  • colitis
  • common cold
  • constipation
  • dental pain
  • depression
  • diarrhea
  • digestive trouble
  • dizziness
  • dysentery
  • emotional problems
  • eye problems
  • facial palsy
  • fatigue
  • fertility
  • fibromyalgia
  • gingivitis
  • headache
  • hiccough
  • incontinence
  • indigestion
  1. Han JS. Acupuncture and endorphins. Neurosci Lett. 2004 May 6;361(1-3):258-61.
  2. Langevin H. The Science of Stretch: The study of connective tissue is shedding light on pain and providing new explanations for alternative medicine. The Scientist; May 2013.
  3. Liu H, et. al. fMRI Evidence of Acupoints Specificity in Two Adjacent Acupoints.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2013.
  4. Linde K, Allais G, Brinkhaus B, Manheimer E, Vickers A, White AR. Acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD001218. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001218.pub2.
  5. Linde K, Allais G, Brinkhaus B, Manheimer E, Vickers A, White AR. Acupuncture for tension-type headache. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD007587. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007587.
  6. Lee A, Fan LTY. Stimulation of the wrist acupuncture point P6 for preventing postoperative nausea and vomiting. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD003281. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD003281.pub3.
  7. Ezzo J, Richardson MA, Vickers A, Allen C, Dibble S, Issell BF, Lao L, Pearl M, Ramirez G, Roscoe JA, Shen J, Shivnan JC, Streitberger K, Treish I, Zhang G. Acupuncture-point stimulation for chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting.Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD002285. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD002285.pub2.
  8. Trinh K, Graham N, Gross A, Goldsmith CH, Wang E, Cameron ID, Kay TM, Cervical Overview Group. Acupuncture for neck disorders. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD004870. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004870.pub3.
  9. Furlan AD, van Tulder MW, Cherkin D, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes BW, Berman BM. Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2005, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD001351. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001351.pub2.
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