The three most common questions I get regarding acupuncture.

Q: Does it hurt?
A: Patients are usually very nervous and think it must hurt but are always surprised to find that there is little to no discomfort with acupuncture needles. There can be a quick pinch, which patients have described as like a mosquito bite or maybe a little sharper but normally they don’t feel most of the needles even going in. I have yet to come across a patient that does not like acupuncture and ever complained that it hurt. If you are still not convinced we have a machine from Japan that is a needle-less form of acupuncture and we also have laser acupuncture treatments available.

Q: How many treatments do I need?
A: This will depend on each individual. Some report great benefit after one treatment but usually most people need a few treatments. It depends on how
much imbalance is in your body and what is being treated. Your exam can tell you a lot more about how many treatments you may need.

Q: Do I need acupuncture?
A: If you are not balanced, then you need acupuncture. If you don’t know if you are balanced an acupuncture exam in our clinic will show you what all 12 of your acupuncture meridians are doing. You will see if your meridians have low energy (weakened), high (stressed) energy, and imbalances in energy on the right and left side of the body or normal balanced energy levels. Most patient’s love seeing their graph and learning about what the meridians in their body do.

Acupuncture has been healing individuals for over 5,000 years!

Early Chinese physicians discovered that people have an energy network traversing their bodies, just below the surface of their skin. This network communicates from the exterior to the internal organs and is made up of over 1000 "Acupoints" on the body. This energy works in harmony with the body's circulatory, nervous, muscular, digestive, genitourinary and all other systems. When this vital energy becomes blocked or weakened, an effect in a body system or anatomic location becomes evident. By stimulating one or more key Acupoints on the body, acupuncturists can restore harmony to the affected area.

Historians have stated that "more people have benefited from acupuncture over the course of fifty centuries than the combined total of all other healing sciences, both ancient and modern."

How many times have you heard a doctor tell you:

"There is nothing wrong."
"It is all in your head."
"Sorry, you'll have to learn to live with it."

The doctor who examines you is simply unable to find the cause of the problem and has little else to tell you. Fortunately, these same doctors are now referring their patients for an acupuncture evaluation as a last resort.

Acupuncture Examination at theBackBone Chiropractic Health Facility

In traditional acupuncture, the most important part of the acupuncture exam was the pulse diagnosis. This technique involved the trained practitioner feeling the pulse and thereby determining the balance of the body's 12 meridians. Now a more modern electronic evaluation technique, called "ryodoraku" or "electro meridian imaging" (EMI), involves placing a painless electronic pen on the skin over specific Acupoints to measure their electro-potential. This examination is extremely reliable and is quickly becoming the international standard method of diagnosis.

Dr. Clinton at Backbone Chiropractic does an EMI exam on all acupuncture patients and gives them a printout of their 12 meridians. This way each patient can see where any imbalances exist. Patients are also shown descriptions of how these imbalances can affect their health.

Conditions Treated Using Acupuncture

Acupuncture textbooks list well over 100 different conditions that respond well to Acupuncture treatment. The World Health Organization, working in close harmony with the International Acupuncture training center of the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has indicated that Acupuncture is effective in treating the following conditions:

Acute and chronic pain relief
Migraine, tension cluster, and sinus headaches
Trigeminal Neuralgia
Bladder dysfunction and bed wetting
Cervical (neck) pain
Mid-back pain
Low shoulder
Tennis elbow
Post-operative pain relief
Gastric problems
Asthma
Allergies
Skin conditions
Hemorrhoids
Abnormal blood pressure
Fatigue
Anxiety
Neurologic syndrome
Various eye problems
And much more...