What Can Acupuncture Treat?

Acupuncture is an alternative medicine practice that originated in China more than 3 thousands years ago. It is part of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a complete healthcare system with its own unique forms of diagnoses and treatments, extremely successful in curing a vast range of conditions. Let’s see what can acupuncture treat, according to World Health Organization (WHO), and how it works.

What is Acupuncture?

Acupuncture needles head model textbook and moxa roll

Instead of treating only the symptoms of a disease, acupuncture focuses on the origin of the problem, by determining what has caused it.

Traditional Chinese Medicine sees a disease as an imbalance in energy flow (or life force, known as Chi), which leads to the disruption in the overall equilibrium. Hence, by re-balancing the energy flow, acupuncture will cure also the disease, as well as eliminate its symptoms.

Acupuncture, therefore, works on bringing the whole body back into harmony and restoring the overall health of the patient.

There is an old saying that can be applied to this holistic approach to healing, that characterizes Traditional Chinese Medicine: “The man is not sick because he has an illness, but has an illness because he is sick.”

How Does Acupuncture Treat?

Cupping therapy

Acupuncture involves the insertion of very thin needles into particular points of the body, also known as acupoints, which allows the practitioner to target specific organs.

However, we should first of all understand that this ancient Chinese practice is a holistic therapy based on treating patterns, or different systems of functions within the body, which are directly connected to certain health conditions. Kidney Yin Deficiency, Spleen Yang Deficiency, Lung Qi Deficiency, Heart Qi Deficiency, and Liver Yang Excess are a few examples of these patterns.

When these patterns are out of balance, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your kidneys, spleen, lungs, heart or liver are sick. These organs, or patterns, are also associated with other health conditions and symptoms.

For example, symptoms of Kidney Yin Deficiency may include: soreness and weakness of the lumbar regions and knees, dizziness, poor memory, constipation, hearing problems, dry mouth at night and some others.

In more practical terms, it means that when a specific medical condition (such as back pain or headache) is being treated with acupuncture, this kind of therapy will alleviate other health problems as well. Even if the patient hasn’t previously mentioned these disorders, his digestion and pressure will improve, he will feel less tired and his blood circulation will get better.

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