Acupuncture: Ancient Medicine in a New Era

In use for more than 5000 years in the Far East, acupuncture is finally getting more widely accepted as a modern medical option in the western world.

Acupuncture is a form of medicine that has been practiced for more than 5000 years by Chinese medical specialists and still practiced regularly today in China and many other Eastern and European countries. Yet in 2002 less than 40% of the U.S. insurance companies covered acupuncture treatment in their plans. Today that figure has risen to about 70% and there is currently a bill proposed (Assembly Bill 54) requiring all health-care service plans and health insurers to provide coverage for acupuncture.

Acupuncture uses ultra thin needles that are inserted into particular areas of the body to treat digestive disorders, respiratory disorders, neurological and muscular disorders, and more. It can also be used to simply promote health and well-being, and to prevent illness.

The classic Chinese explanation for this is that there are channels of energy, called meridians, which run in regular patterns throughout the body and over its surface. Obstructions in the movement of these channels of energy slow or prevent the body's natural healing abilities. In using acupuncture, the needles are inserted in such a way to remove the obstructions and reestablish the regular flow of energy through the meridians.

The modern scientific explanation is that the needles properly placed stimulate the nervous system to release chemicals and hormones into the muscles, spinal cord, and brain which can reduce pain and influence the body's own internal regulating system.

Whichever explanation is more accurate, however, is not the point. The point is that acupuncture works and is finally getting recognized in the western world for its benefit to modern medicine.

My mother had a torn meniscus on her knee from a tennis injury in the 1970's. Through the years she continued to play tennis and golf and bike for as long as the pain allowed her to. In 2003, at age 67, the pain was finally more than she could take and she went to see her doctor. She didn't want to give up her active lifestyle.

She was given cortisone shots to get rid of the pain, but the treatment was almost as painful as the malady. A couple of weeks of the treatment were all she could take and the doctor told her she would need to have both knees replaced with surgery.

At the same time, she had gone to see a hand specialist about arthritis that had gotten so bad she couldn't open caps, make a fist, or grip her golf clubs properly anymore. The hand specialists also suggested surgery on her thumbs if she wanted to continue playing golf.

On a couple of occasions, a friend had suggested that she look into acupuncture for her knees and her arthritis, but my mother's fear of needles had prevented her from ever looking into it. Now facing several proposed surgeries by her doctors, however, she decided to at least give acupuncture a try; to give a go under the needle before going under the knife, so to speak.

For her fingers and thumbs, the acupuncturist placed needles under both wrists. For her knees, they were placed inside each ankle. She said the needles were so thin that she didn't even feel them as they were inserted. She began with two treatments per week for the first month, and then reduced her visits to once a week. Soon she was only going a couple of times per month and then only once. After six months, she was back out on tennis courts and playing golf pain-free again. She says the arthritic pain in her hands disappeared completely.

After a year without any treatment at all, the pain began to resurface again on the tennis court. She went back to her acupuncturist and started the treatments again and got the pain under control right away. Currently she is 71 years old, still playing tennis a couple of times a week and golf four or five times a week, and pain-free while visiting her acupuncturist once a month. He has told her that the acupuncture cannot cure her of her ailments, but it can relieve the pain and enable her to continue to enjoy her activities for as long as she likes.

She never had the knee replacement surgery or the thumb surgery and currently believes she may never have to go through with them. In a recent letter to me, she wrote, "Acupuncture is a lifesaver for me."

In my mother's case, her insurance plan didn't cover acupuncture treatments despite the thousands of dollars it had saved them by avoiding the extensive and expensive surgeries that her doctors had proposed. She had to pay for it out of her own pocket.

Acupuncture need not be looked at anymore as an ancient Chinese art, but rather as a modern medical option to treat many physical and mental conditions.