How does acupuncture work?

Question

What do they do exactaly? I'm intrested in getting it.

Answer 1

it supposadly straitens out your chi, i have had it a few times, it help me.

Answer 2

The most likely explanation for acupuncture's effect on pain relief is the release of endorphens as a result of needles piercing your skin. Acupuncture's claims to affect energy meridians is unfounded since these meridians have never been found. Studies using a variety of controls from piercing non-acupuncture points, needles just piercing the skin but no further, stage-dagger type needles, etc.  have all given the same results in studies of acupuncture. In other words it is no better than placebo.

While the potential for infection is low, it can happen if the acupuncturist doesn't use sterile needles.

Answer 3

you cna only feel 2 type of pain at once: long term and short term. acupuncture relieves the long term, like back pains, because it gives you short term pain. the body won't notice the long term for a little while.

Answer 4

Acupuncture works under the premise the body is like a map and with the all the different ailments and issues the body has it corresponds with a specific place on the body, also with the use of Chinese meridians.  So when the needle is placed into a specific spot on the body it will stimulate the body to help heal itself from any pains or issues.

Answer 5

Acupuncture doesn't work, so why do you want to get into it? Is scamming money from sick people something you want to do with your life?

Obviously most people who get into this industry are not well educated. Your spelling is terrible; perhaps you could go to classes to improve your basic education level before you start interfering in people's health?

Answer 6

I'll try to give the most accurate and understandable answer I can without letting it be too long.

Unforunately, the entire field is so misunderstood that most of people out there commenting on it don't really understand the concepts and there's a lot of conflicting information on it.

First off, the chinese believe a human being is composed of a series of ascending systems or energy bodies, with each successive system being a higher system binding those one below it, being harder to detect than that before, and having the power to effect all below it, especially that nearest.

The first body is referred to as the physical on, and all direct factors of health reside here (which shouldn't be too hard to understand). Since Chinese medicine is primarily concerned with treating someone's health, given the rules I just described most of their work thus works on the body directly above it (the Chi body). There are plenty of exception, but they are outside the scope of this explanation, generally things beyond this are instead part of meditation.

For most conditions, Chinese medicine essentially believes that if you have problems in your Chi body, it translates to problems in your physical health, so the best approach to treating disease is to fix the Chi. Unfortunately, Chi is impossible to detect currently with scientific devices, and most people lack the sensitivity to do so, so many of these viewpoints intrinsically clash with western science. Although, many other cultures have come up with similar conclusions to the Chinese.

Problems with Chi tend to be broken into two types.

1) There is too much or too little. This can be perfectly analogized to someone being too hot or cold, either way their physiology has problems. This is why balancing yin and yang and returning the body to homeostasis is essentially the concept behind most Chinese medicine.

2) The chi is stuck and cannot flow through the body.

There are many many many ways to affect chi in the body (ie. herbs are prescribed for how they change the bodies energy rather than active ingredients). One of these is accupuncture.

Most of the energy within someones Chi body moves along paths and channels in the body, commonly referred to as meridian lines (often analogized to a network of blood vessels for energy instead of something physical). Different meridian lines connect to the body or meridian lines, and have different effects on the physical body they lie above. If a meridian line is stimulated in the correct place, it will in turn affect many of the things it's linked to and cause some change in the patient. Since people are all born with very similar meridian line positioning, by having charts drawn up with meridian lines to be memorized, it makes it possible for people lacking the ability to feel them to be able to know where to find them.

The only remaining question is "how does the acupuncturist know how to manipulate the meridian lines to create the desired health effect."

There quite a few accupuncture systems existing, although the simplest one (TCM) is by far the most common. TCM evaluates the patient for Yin/Yang imbalances in a few common categories, along with specific problems to organ systems (which often extend beyond the physical organ they are named after), and then use methods they are taught to boost or reduce flow to malfunctioning parts. Exactly how you do this varies case by case and requires a few years of training to explain, but when this is all put together it means

A TCM doctor sees you and notices a few of the TCM diagnostic criteria are incorrect (or links the problems you described to common Chi body malfunctions).

He then picks the points he knows will stimulate the meridian lines/Chi body to fix the problems, and puts needles in where he thinks the points- are on your body.

For certain energetic problems, herbs work much better than accupuncture (especially long term things and changes the bodies actual energy, accupuncture works best for problems arising from meridian lines being blocked).

I'm actually not a fan of TCM because I think there's way better versions, but that's what 95% of the country knows.

Hope that helps, if you'd like to know more about any specific branch of Chinese Medicine I'd be happy to tell you!