Among the several types of therapies that are available, acupuncture sounds a bit overwhelming. The very thought of having multiple needles driven into your skin simultaneously is scary. Surprising as it may be to hear, acupuncture is not at all painful. The therapy of acupuncture has been practiced and studied for the past 2500 years. While acupuncture cannot cure chronic illnesses, it can help with the management of the symptoms, especially when used together with modern forms of medications.
What exactly is Acupuncture?
An ancient form of Chinese medicine, acupuncture makes use of needles to penetrate certain identified points in the skin to treat several problems. Acupuncture is rather a minimally invasive method to trigger certain points in the skin to influence organs, tissues, nerves, glands, and other bodily functions. Although each insertion site is extremely tiny, it is enough to give a signal to the body to respond. The body responds by triggering the immune system, improving healing, managing the pain, and promoting blood circulations around the area.
Another aspect of acupuncture is the ‘qi’ or “chee”. According to Chinese philosophy, the human body is driven by the life-giving energy called ‘qi’ and most ailments happen when the body’s ‘qi’ goes out of balance. The acupuncture helps bring the ‘qi’ back in balance, thus helping in the healing process. When the qi flow within the body is balanced, a person feels well-rested, happy, and healthy. When the qi flow gets blocked or is affected negatively, the person starts feeling unhappy and the body becomes unhealthy, attracting illnesses.
For those who don’t believe in qi, even research proves that when a person is happy, he stays healthy. The human body is more prone to diseases when a person feels unhappy, anxious, or stressed. Thus, your moods and emotional well-being affect your physical well-being as well. Acupuncture helps in balancing out the qi or energy, providing stability in emotions, and as a result, helping in the process of healing.
How does acupuncture in Sittingbourne work?
One might say that acupuncture is a holistic way of healing the mind and the body. While not used as commonly as other modern physiotherapies, people who have done acupuncture in Sittingbourne often claim to feel happy, calm, and balanced after the therapy.
As mentioned earlier, imbalances in qi result in illnesses. According to Chinese philosophy, the qi flows through the human body via meridians or pathways. The human body has 350 such meridians or points through which qi flows. An acupuncturist can access the qi through these meridians. By placing the needles at these meridians, the acupuncturist can help balance out the imbalances in the qi of the human body.
While the presence of these meridians has not been proven scientifically, research has shown that acupuncture does provide relief to patients. Another way of seeing this is that most meridian points are placed near the nerves or connective tissue or muscles. Thus, when the needles are inserted, they stimulate the nearby nerves into action, thereby providing the necessary stimulation. This stimulation results in the activity within the nerves that helps as a natural pain killer thereby reducing the symptoms of pain. For the same reason, physiotherapists in Sittingbourne suggest acupuncture for problems such as headaches, whooping cough, blood pressure, etc.
Uses of Acupuncture in Sittingbourne
Since acupuncture results in pain-killer activity in the body, the most common illness for which people visit an acupuncturist is headaches and migraines. Some of the other conditions to be treated with acupuncture in Sittingbourne are low-back pain, knee pain, osteoarthritis, neck pain, etc. According to a report by WHO or World Health Organization, a few other conditions to benefit from acupuncture are gastric conditions, PMS or painful periods, dysentery, allergic rhinitis, chemotherapy-induced nausea, sprains, dental pain, sciatica, facial pain among many others.
A few other conditions in which acupuncture was found helpful although more research needs to be provided are neuralgia, stiff neck, Tourette syndrome, spine pain, substance abuse, fibromyalgia, vascular dementia, epidemic hemorrhagic fever, UTI or Urinary Tract Infection, etc.
Benefits of Acupuncture in Sittingbourne
Among the many benefits of acupuncture is the fact that acupuncture in Sittingbourne has no side effects. It is minimally invasive, making it extremely safe to be tried. When this therapy is combined with other treatments, the results have been found extremely satisfying. Acupuncture is also a natural pain-killer. Therefore, it is suitable for patients who are advised against using painkiller medications.
