Acupuncture is now widely used and accepted throughout the medical community. Central City Physiotherapy can offer acupuncture as a treatment modality in conjunction with traditional physiotherapy management. Physiotherapists who practice acupuncture go through post-graduate training to become proficient.
Acupuncture involves inserting fine needles into specific points located throughout the body to help relieve pain and has other therapeutic effects.
Acupuncture originated in China some 5,000 years ago and is widely used in China as part of traditional Chinese medicine. The traditional Chinese belief of health is based on a balance of energy, or Chi, throughout the body. This energy flows in the body along 12 major pathways or meridians. Acupuncture points are located along these meridians. The ancient Chinese people used to pay their doctors to keep them well, rather than to help fix them once they became ill.
What can you expect from an acupuncture treatment?
Pain relief may be immediate or develop over a few hours or days. Acupuncture often has a cumulative effect, with pain relieving affects building up over a series of treatments. In the West there has been a lot of research to ascertain why and how acupuncture works. Basically, acupuncture works on your neurophysiology of pain to help reduce the pain. Dry needling on the other hand works on specific muscle spasm (“knots”), to help release tension by giving intramuscular stimulation.
New disposable needles are used every time for dry needling and acupuncture. These are extremely fine, unlike when you have a blood test or an injection. Both techniques do not give or take any fluid so there is usually little or no discomfort from the needle. If you want acupuncture as part of your treatment you will need to request it as not all therapists have post graduate training in this area.
Acupuncture is useful for most conditions. If this is to be the main approach to treatment we recommend a more highly qualified Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner.