Over 50 million people suffer from chronic long-term pain. And almost 132 million opiate prescriptions were written in 2022!
Luckily, the numbers are going down, but opioid prescriptions are still written at an alarming rate!
In my clinic, I see a lot of patients with lower back pain, neck or shoulder pain, golfer’s elbow, headache/migraine, tennis elbow, and knee pain.
Acupuncture can help with almost any pain. Sometimes, the effects are temporary or start to come back before they get better. This can be due to several different reasons:
There may be something my patient is doing to aggravate the condition. If they have poor work ergonomics, acupuncture will only help temporarily until the workstation is adjusted. Sometimes, there is a body habit that is causing this pain. If a person always stands with their weight on the same leg, this will ultimately cause issues with the knees/hips/lower back. Maybe it’s how they drive their car…someone who drives for a living and drives a stick shift will likely end up with hip/low back issues at some point.
There may be an underlying stress condition causing inflammation. Time and time again, especially with neck or shoulder pain, when I ask my patient about their stress level, they tell me it’s off the charts. When we have a lot coming at us – a lot of life and work demands we often instinctively tighten our muscles. Acupuncture can help the body deal with stress and relax the muscles – it can’t, however, make a mean boss nice! Sometimes, getting healthy does entail making some personal life changes.
There may be underlying structural issues. Acupuncture is amazing, but it’s not magic – if a person has spinal disk degeneration to the point where the bones are bumping into each other with movement, acupuncture can only temporarily help with the inflammation in the surrounding tissues – it can’t regrow disks or create cartilage. In these cases, acupuncture will only temporarily help when used alone. This is where acupuncture works quite well as an adjunct therapy – speeding healing after surgery by increasing blood flow to the area and reducing inflammation.