The World Health Organization recognizes acupuncture as an effective pain management modality. In medical acupuncture, your practitioner treats you only after a conventional medical/neuro-functional diagnosis has been made. The practitioner will use acupuncture as a treatment modality along with other therapeutic approaches, as needed.
The contemporary acupuncture practitioner applies treatment following a conventional (scientific) view and regards the acupuncture as having certain local tissue effects as well as providing segmental analgesia, extra-segmental analgesia, and central regulatory effects on the nervous system.
Acupuncture produces many of its effects by stimulating nerve receptors in the skin and muscle. Various substances are released, increasing local blood flow and encouraging tissue healing. Acupuncture helps reduce pain locally where the needles are inserted and throughout the body, while also calming the nervous system. This modality can also inactivate myofascial trigger points while affecting pain perception in the frontal cortex.
Medical acupuncture takes an ancient therapy and re-defines its mechanisms and effects using present-day scientific understanding of human physiology.
