The given method of treatment represents the great interest to me and, I think, for the majority of people, both for potential patients, and for professional medical workers first of all because it is one of ancient methods of treatment of various diseases and this treatment method is more physiologic (it has no special contra-indication), than treatment by medicines or even by homoeopathic medications. Also this method helps an organism by itself to normalize exchange processes in the struck bodies and fabrics by strengthening or decreasing of functions.
At the certain level acupuncture prevents surgical intervention, effecting on an organism of chemical preparations. Besides, I am eager to get to know about the history of origin of acupuncture, its methods and opportunity concerning to fighting against a chronic pain and illnesses, and also proofs of its efficiency and advantages before other techniques of treatment. Acupuncture has been around for a long time. It is a medical art that has flourished in China and throughout the Orient for at least 2,500 years.
Acupuncture is one of the five major areas of therapeutics within the field of traditional Chinese medicine. It is not exclusively Chinese, though its origins are Chinese. Modern acupuncture is practiced in Japan and Korea, with very distinct and wonderful styles from each tradition. The other areas of therapeutics within Oriental medicine include herbal medicine, manual therapy – which is Tui Na – and exercise therapy, as well as dietetics. Acupuncture is also thought to decrease pain by increasing the release of chemicals that block pain, called endorphins.
Many acu-points are near nerves. From a Western scientific viewpoint, acupuncture needles, when they enter the skin, stimulate peripheral nerves which send messages into the central nervous system along the spinal cord and into the brain. In the brain, various chemistry and electrical changes are evoked by acupuncture stimulus. Those can include the release of endorphins, which are the body’s natural pain relieving substance, as well as other neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, can be associated with a host of brain changes and health benefits.
From a scientific medical viewpoint, acupuncture stimulates blood circulation by dilating blood vessels all over the body. It has a regulating impact on the immune system, and may also have a regulating impact on certain endocrine functions. Which is why, for instance, acupuncture is so helpful in treating menstrual disorders. Acupuncture is as broad as it is ancient. It includes techniques beyond the use of needles. Historically, not only was there a selection of needles, nine to be exact, but several of those needles were never used to puncture. Acupuncture also was, and is, routinely used with moxibustion, a heat therapy.
Its therapeutic repertoire has also included a bloodletting very different from that of medieval Europe, a suction stimulation now called ‘cupping,’ massage and physical manipulation in several forms, as well as disciplines like qi gong that apply movement arts to medicine. Practitioners in different times and different cultures have thought many different things when they used the Chinese term that today we call ‘acupuncture’. Today, acupuncturists use a range of tools and techniques, from disposable needles to electric stimulators and lasers. Each defines what they do as acupuncture.
Speaking precisely, however, zhen in Chinese refers to the use of needles. Although individual practitioners have combined needling with other techniques, there has never been any absolute link between one treatment method and another. Although the time required to master the skills has tended to keep clinician’s practices fairly narrow, the choice to combine different therapies has always been a mix of personal preference, the training available, social needs, and economic advantages. Acupuncture is a technique which is used to balance and regulate the activity of the Qi, or Chi, in the body.
Chi is usually described as the normal functional energy that is associated with all living processes. It flows through the body, through all living systems, in pathways called meridians. Meridians are likened to rivers, or irrigation canals, in a poetic sense. So acupuncture stimulation of points along the meridians regulates flow of Chi, or functional energy, in the body, and thereby enhances health. The meridian network is very complex. It is understood to span all parts of the body with meridians continuously flowing into one another.
Disease is understood to be something that can rise when its flow of Chi is somehow disrupted in one or more meridians, or one or more areas of the body. Blockage of the Chi can result in pain, as well as dysfunction of organs or other tissues, and can have a broad impact on one’s entire system. This is simply a way of describing every day, observable events. When one sprains an ankle, they may have pain alongside of the leg, not just in the ankle, but all the way to the hip, even. This is obstruction of the Chi from trauma.