Back Pain Acupuncture Treatment
Acupuncture treatment can be a thriving go-to treatment for relieving chronic back pain. Such a treatment can be performed on either the upper or lower back to relieve pain.
The effectiveness of acupuncture treatment is backed by study, and it is effective and safe only if a well-trained, qualified professional perform the treatment.
Regardless, acupuncture treatment might not be suitable for everyone. Thus, you need to consult your primary physicist and professional acupuncturist about the treatment and your health conditions to determine whether it is right for you or not.
Let’s know in detail about acupuncture treatment for back pain and also find out whether it is a good or bad method.
What is acupuncture?
Acupuncture treatment is an age-old Chinese medicine-based method of treating a wide range of ailments by activating specific points using needles in the patient’s body.
It’s a minimally intrusive approach to stimulate nerve-rich regions of the body to control tissues, organs, glands, and different parts of the body.
Needles used in the procedure produce a tiny wound at the insertion area, although it is small and thin enough to cause no to little discomfort.
This involves instigation of the immune system, stimulating circulation to the site, wound healing, as well as pain reduction.
Back Pain Acupuncture Treatment: Is It Good Or Bad?
Many patients who are suffering from chronic back pain have seen acupuncture as a helpful and effective method for them. However, the scientific proof to support those assertions has been scrambled, partially because it is difficult to develop a good arrangement of sham acupuncture.
Acupuncture for chronic back pain consists of inserting very small needles to different depths and areas into specific points on the patient’s body. Scientific investigations have shown that sham acupuncture performs as well as actual acupuncture for chronic back pain.
Though, a key point is that in numerous investigations, both real acupuncture and sham acupuncture relieved lower back pain more than having no therapy at all.
It means that sham acupuncture treatment has an effect, or this could also mean that the results of acupuncture might be expected in part to having a placebo effect.
Thus, in case other therapies have not helped reduce your back pain, then it might be worth attempting acupuncture treatment.
However, if you do not see any visible result within 6-8 weeks, then acupuncture treatment may not be a suitable treatment for you.
How Does Acupuncture Treatment Relieve Back Pain?
Acupuncture treatment helps relieve acute low back pain by targeting the tension points. Needles are then inserted at different points, which are the meridians or energy centers that affect your body’s functions. There are a few distinct meridians that the acupuncture specialist can use to impact the lower back, which also help to reduce pain in the following areas:
- Hips
- Hands
- Spinal cord
- Lower back
- Back of your knees
- Feet
But how does inserting needles help with reducing back pain? Well, there are 4 major views on how this insertion of needles helps reduce lower back pain:
Neurotransmitter release Chronic Low Back Pain
Acupuncture or Oriental medicine can aid relieve pain by simply stimulating hormones that get triggered as soon as your body detects the insertion of needles.
By needling the acupuncture points, the acupuncturist encourages the hormone production that helps control your nerve endings’ functions.
Thus, trick your body into shutting off places and make sure that you do not feel any pain.
Effects On The Nervous System For Chronic Back Pain Relief
Another view is that the meridians or trigger points used in the acupuncture treatment help stimulate a patient’s nervous system by triggering its response in such a way that allows for managing the back pain.
Acupuncture thus may impact your brain by reacting to the precise stimulus points each time the needles are inserted. Thus, your nervous system either focuses on or compensates for that point instead of the site that is causing you initiating pain.
Activates Electromagnetic Instincts In Your Body
These instincts can aid in speeding up your body’s way of managing pain, including the discharge of endorphins or natural painkillers.
Chemical Release For Pain Relief
Finally, acupuncture treatment may stimulate the depths of the patient’s body too that discharge pain-relieving chemicals after you are injured.
Generally, these chemicals for pain relief are only discharged during severe or active trauma, so they aren’t triggered for chronic pain.
However, with the overall effects of inserting needles on a large extent of your body, it is more likely to react by discharging these natural pain killers.
FINAL WORDS
The method of acupuncture pain management treatment — used on all types of conditions— dates back to Traditional Chinese Medicine (in short TCM) and is dependent on the assumption that energy in our body flows along paths, called meridians or chi/qi.
Thus, Acupuncture treatment is a secure therapy and procedure when you approach a certified professional acupuncturist for the treatment.
Visit our Pain Management page to learn more.