Take Acupuncture to Relieve Back Pain
It seems that whenever you are at work, at school, in the gym, or in church, you almost always meet someone who complains of back pain. As a matter of fact, back pain is one of the most common medical problems in the United States. It can range from a dull, constant ache to sudden, sharp pain. Most people have back pain at some point in their lives. Back pain can be caused by many things, such as an injury, arthritis, or a disease.
Back pain is one of the top reasons patients seek acupuncture treatments. Back pain and sciatica are two of the most common forms of pain that people experience. It makes sense, then, that acupuncture is highly beneficial in the treatment of both conditions. Countless studies have shown that acupuncture is an effective treatment for back pain and sciatica. Acupuncture can help to relieve pain, improve function, and reduce inflammation.
In fact, when it comes to back pain, British researchers have concluded that acupuncture can be more effective than prescription drugs or even surgeries. In short, it works. That’s why acupuncture is the top choice of treatment for millions of people all over the world for low back pain.
Your back is in trouble
Your lower back may have been adversely affected by conditions deriving from poor posture, sitting inappropriately in a car or bus for hours, or sitting for extended periods at your desk or weightlifting at the gym, until it finally gave up with a “pop”, silently screaming with pain. If the sciatic nerve, the longest nerve in the body (including the branches), is affected in this process, you may experience pain traveling down the leg or sometimes tingling and numbness as well.
At an early stage, simple back pain may disappear with rest and over-the-counter medications. However, if not properly treated, about a quarter of the back pain will progress to become a chronic problem—one of the most common reasons people miss work. Don’t let that happen to you. Simple acupuncture treatments can save your back from future devastating pain and prevent further damage to your back.
Acupuncture for Lower Back Pain
Increasing numbers of people are forgoing prescription painkillers because of their harmful side effects. They may cause stomach bleeding, kidney damage, liver damage, even bleeding in the brain. Obviously, pain medications have an important role to play in relieving pain and in helping patients.
But for many pain disorders such as backache, especially at an early stage, it may not be necessary or plausible to rely on strong medications whether taken orally or through injection. Why would you take those strong chemicals when there are such simple and more effective solutions such as acupuncture, cupping, moxibustion, exercise, stretching, and herbs?
When there’s inflammation in the body, stem cells naturally flow to the affected area to heal the injury. Some researchers noted that taking painkillers actually stops the stem cells from flowing into the area. In general, those who take painkillers regularly may recover from their injuries more slowly. When you take acupuncture, white blood cell count increases to reduce the inflammation, and also the level of endorphin goes up, which reduces the pain.
If you’re experiencing back pain as a result of an injury, an illness, a bulging disc, sciatica, or stress, acupuncture could be the best alternative treatment available to you.
Acupuncturists use different points for different purposes. Trigger points are used to relieve referred pain, local points are used to reduce inflammation and tissue stiffness, and meridian points help the body to improve circulation and restore balance, which can reduce inflammation and speed up the healing process.
It’s a well-known fact that acupuncture produces excellent results, but some people are concerned that they may have to take acupuncture for a long time. In reality, with proper treatment, acute back pain can often be cleared up in a few sessions. Chronic back pain would take more sessions, but as you get more treatments, you will experience many other positive effects of acupuncture. In general, you are recommended to take frequent treatments at first, and then taper off after your pain lessens.
Acupuncture Side Effects
Another surprising “side effects” of acupuncture is, patients who receive acupuncture tend to have more energy, move more easily with less pain, sleep better, and take less pain medication while feeling better in general for no particular reasons.
This is possible due to increased free flow of energy.
Unlike other allopathic medicine, acupuncture is a holistic medicine in which the practitioner looks at the whole body, rather than just the pain area, before deciding on the treatment protocols.
At Chang’s Acupuncture, we often combine acupuncture with electric stimulation, moxibustion, cupping, acupressure, tui na, and stretching to treat lower back pain. They all work together to relieve pain, reduce inflammation and promote circulation to help healing. Call us or send us an email today to find out if acupuncture is the right treatment option for you to be free from the never-ending low back pain.