Anyone who has had side effects from acupuncture?

Question

I have been having acupuncture for a long time now. In the last 2 months I have 2 treatments (from different practitioners) and 2 days after each I suffered panic attacks. I have suffered from OCD and anxiety for 23 years and have never had this side effect before. Is this just a co-incidence or is it a side effect from the acupuncture?

Answer 1

Same as with Homeopathy, sometimes when it's starting to work, your symptoms might get worse in the beginning... it's like house cleaning, at first everything looks upside down!!! It's working don't worry..

Answer 2

Hi!  It could be.  Everyone has different experiences with acupuncture at different times.  I have have panic attacks since 1979 and learn to live with the disorder.  It is h**l and everyday it's a struggle to just survive.  My strong love for Jesus is the only way I manage.  In the spiritual world, disorders of this kind is attacks by the devil to disturb a good, kind, and potentially a holy human so he can own their goodness and distract them so much that they can't help others.  I fight that with reaching out and trying to help others by visiting nursing homes and hospice work.  You are meant for great things and you have the capacity of seeing deeper things than others.  You are one of the very special human beings that are filled with compassion.  If the acupuncture keeps seeming to cause the attacks, give it a break and see what happens.  Then go back in month or so and see.  I wish you blessings and I will pray for you!  Good Luck!

Answer 3

Whenever you have anything from acupuncture to massage, you are having your blockages/issues released in some sort of fashion.  I usually explain to my clients that they might feel suddenly happy or sad for no reason.  There are times people have an, "emotional," release on my table during a session that the body was ready to release.  Understand this, your body would like nothing more then for you to release all of this tension and memories of stress and issues.  What the kicker is, are you ready to DEAL with those releases?  Whenever you have this sort of work done, you really can't stop and go once a year.  It is something that must be done in doses, but consistently, but at your pace.  For new and regular maintenance people to the area of massage, I recommend once a month for maintenance.  If you are having attacks.. and you are only seeing any of the above like once a year or only on special occasions your body could be like:  Okay, you've opened the door, why aren't we going back to deal with this?  Your body is like a 5 year old telling on you to a practitioner that knows the body.  They see it, feel it when working on you, but will only talk about it when you ask them.  We are not counselors, so we might refer you to them if needed.  But, if you ask them, "What do you see." be prepared to hear some answers.  Not all Therapists are created equal and not all are intuitive to the body.  For the best massage, make sure that you are comfortable with the person so you can relax.  If not, the session is over before it began.  Also, never expect any practitioner of any modality to remove in an hour what has taken you a life time to put into your body.. Your body has three layers of muscle to work through and so each layer must be release one at a time.  it will take some time.  For some, it's seeing them once a week for two months, then down to once a month.  (that's extreme.)

Then there are just some bodies that acupuncture does not work with, my body is one of these.  When a practitioner came to my massage school some years back, he jacked up my head neck and shoulders so bad I needed an instructor to release the work he did!  So, shop around.  Hope that helps, Cheers.

Answer 4

I have only had excellent results from acupuncture. Panic attacks shouldn't happen, but life can be complicated!

You mentioned you are going to different practitioners. Are they all reputable?

Be careful and good luck to you.

Answer 5

A good acupuncturist can balance your health and nervous system. Those practitioners may be working on some other symptom and ignoring the nervous problem. Let them know about these symptoms and if they can't help then try to find someone more sensitive who can.

Answer 6

It's really a case by case thing, but odds are this is what is happening (keep in mind there can also be a tremendous ammount of variation).

According to chinese medicine theory, many problems in the physical body are caused by blockages in the first energetic body.  There are many many things which can cause blockages including trauma, and if you fully understand this model it explains a lot of things western medicine comes up short on (such as why do rape victims get so deeply messed up?).

As such, one of the big goals in chinese medicine is to open up the blockages so that things can flow through them.

Unfortunately, for some strange reason the body normally does not like opening energetic blockages and all sorts of problems pop up when you do (or to be more exact the nerves don't like to let go of it).  These can include feeling pain or discomfort, or reliving the problem caused by the blockage caused temporarily.

My guess is that in your case, one of the "bad energies" that's being released from your system is causing the symptoms your describing to emerge as it passes.  It's possible the accupuncturist accidently triggered it when going for fixing another problem (since different health aspects tend to be connected), or he opened it up on purpose.

From my own experience, most American acupuncturists are not aware of the whole concept of energetic blockages (although truthfully I don't really know why this is, since it's a core foundation of Chinese medicine), but if your guy is moderately experienced he should understand this concept.  My advice would be to talk with him and get his opinion on what's occurring.

Sometimes blockages end up getting forced to the surface from a series of combining factors (that can be hard for even the adepts to be fully aware of), and my hunch is that everything you're describing essentially allowed that process to occur.

There are a few other possibilities, such as both the acupuncturists you are seeing being really bad, or some really unusual reaction occurring in your body (both of which I doubt).  So, there's about a 90% it's what I just described but it's not a clear 100% (after all I have very limited information to go off of, and chinese medicine is one field you shouldn't generalize in).

Anyhow, hope that helps!

Answer 7

The only side effect I have after acupuncture is the good feeling of healthier body. The experience you're describing in here is unusual. Please check the credentials of your practitioner.