Acupuncture

Every year millions of patients have an acupuncture treatment in Germany. Most of the pain clinics use acupuncture to treat their patients. This indicates that this method which was until recently seen as an outsider slowly develops to a soft standard therapy for chronic pain. The impact of acupuncture was studied in a large-scale survey involving 45.000 patients and several clinics under the supervision of Munich's university clinic "Rechts der Isar". The first results indicated that pain in the head, back, and joins is effectively treated with acupuncture. More than 50 percent of the patients said that the treatment was effective, for 20 percent it even was very effective. It is remarkable, that the pain killing effect of acupuncture was already noticeably after the sixth session.

What is acupuncture?

It is a treatment originated from the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Needles are pierced in the skin at a different depth at exactly determind points. This is supposed to regulate Yin and Yang, the two forms of life energy, equilibrating blockages within the organism as well as activating or sedating particular organs. The traditional Chinese medicine distinguishes 14 main meridians with 361 main points of acupuncture. The origins of acupuncture go back to about 4.000 BC as a comprehensive system of diagnostics and therapies. Until nowadays the most important sources of acupuncture are the two volumes of the Yellow Emporor of the early Han-Dynasty (200 BC) and the book of Huang Fu-Mi (259 AD).

How does acupuncture work?

Particular spots of the body are stimulated down to the subcutaneous tissue to heal diseases and to relief pain. The results are especially good to treat pain. While establising acupuncture, a correlation was observed between particular acupuncture points and organs and physiological functions. Certain points of the body were assigned to certain diseases. It was observed that all points belonging to one organ lay on one imaginary line. There are twelve lines all together, which are called meridians. According to the Chinese acupuncture school a person is healthy if his energies flow in a harmonious equilibrium through the body. Particular acupuncture points on the meridians are stimulated by the needles accordingly to the disease. This supposedly influences directly the nerves and organs and brings back the flow of energies to a harmonic equilibrium.

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