While being used in Eastern Medicine for thousands of years, Acupuncture has only recently become a modality regularly used by Western Doctors and Allied Health Practitioners like us Physios.

Why is this? Well the research is building and we now know why it has so many positive effects for people’s health. Here are five reasons to not feel prickly about the needles:

1. Blood Flow
   Yes you get a red spot and that’s a GOOD THING. Where the needle goes in, in the skin, muscles and the nerves nearby all get a blood flow boost (up to 80%) and thus a big kick towards healing. The ‘pecking’ technique (love it or hate it) of dry needling increases the local blood flow for up to an hour after treatment!
2. Pain Relief
   This is difficult to put in lay terms but let’s just say acupuncture does a lot with the nervous system.

Firstly, we get stimulation of several different receptive nerve fibres (Aδ, Aβ, C, Ia) that are responsible for a range of types of pain.

This happens at:
-the site of the needle,
-the level of the spine that corresponds to the area needled
-connecting areas up to the brain and down the spinal cord responsible for things like the memory, experience and emotional responses to pain.

Hence, some people will cry or even laugh during or after acupuncture!

3. Feel Good Vibes
   Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) stimulates local endorphin release (woohoo), which has a number of flow on effects like pain relief for up to three days! Due to stimulation signals in the brain, noradrenaline, serotonin, encephalin gets broadly released down the spinal cord to help stop pain and release the happy chemicals! Giddy up.
4. Immune System Effects
   Without getting too heavy on the biology, acupuncture regulates the immunoinflammatory response of the body, causes release of endogenous opiods and stimulates the synthesis of antibodies too so you can feel ‘boosted’ but you’ll still have to eat your vegies.
5. Autonomic Nervous System Regulation
   The affect of acupuncture is whole body. It’s why some people are re-energised while others may feel zonked after treatment.

Things like constriction of blood flow in the skin, sweating, hair raising on  the skin, increase in blood flow of the muscles and some blood pressure and heart rate drop when we stimulate the needles are all as a result of the big regulator of the body.

Next post I’ll go more into detail about the vast effects of Dry Needling and why it’s a great treatment for a multitude of reasons.