Acupuncture has been practiced for thousands of years, and we think that’s because it’s effective. People wouldn’t continue to seek acupuncture if it weren’t helping. Plus, researchers are increasingly discovering evidence that shows that acupuncture can be effective.
Neil Spiegel, DO, has extensive training in alternative therapies and is also a licensed medical acupuncturist. Both he and Jennifer Gularson, PA-C, IFMCP, have seen patients benefit from acupuncture at their practice, Osteopathic Center for Healing in Rockville, Maryland.
The five chronic conditions we discuss in this post are just a few of the many problems acupuncture can help to address.
Arthritis is the umbrella term for diseases of the joints, and there are actually more than 100 different types of arthritis. When your joints hurt, it can be difficult to do even small, daily tasks and nearly impossible to live an active life, which is crucial for good health.
The Arthritis Foundation notes that studies have been done investigating the use of acupuncture for osteoarthritis — the most common form of the disease — rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia.
Not all of the studies were conclusive in providing evidence that acupuncture provided relief, but all were encouraging.
Chronic back pain is incredibly common, and the treatments available through conventional medical practice aren’t always helpful. But acupuncture may well be beneficial. Chronic back pain is the top reason people seek acupuncture.
One of the issues we often find with people who have chronic back pain is that they feel helpless. If you feel like you’ve tried everything, and nothing has helped, you may begin to think there’s no solution.
Acupuncture has few risks or side effects when performed by an expert like Dr. Spiegel. You may find that it both restores your hope and eases your back pain.
Most everyone has a headache at some point or other. But when you have a chronic headache or migraine, it’s much more than just a headache. One migraine can put you out of commission for multiple days sometimes.
One review in 2020 compared acupuncture to treat migraine with several different drug therapies and found that acupuncture was slightly more effective and that participants were more likely to stick with acupuncture than with pharmaceuticals.
As with chronic back pain, there’s little risk in trying acupuncture for headaches, and there may be surprising benefits.
Stress in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but chronic stress can lead to some big physical issues. For example, chronic stress is associated with heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and a host of other chronic issues.
If you can find a way to lower your daily levels of stress, you’ll benefit your overall health.
It’s easy to say “lower your stress levels” but actually doing so while still meeting your daily obligations is not at all an easy thing to do. Acupuncture may be one way to help you ease the stress you feel.
Asthma is associated with increased inflammation, and one of the ways that acupuncture works is that it lowers inflammation. You may need regular sessions to garner the benefits of acupuncture for asthma, but it appears to lead to statistically significant improvements.
If you have a chronic health condition, you may want to consider acupuncture as one element of your treatment. Schedule an appointment today at Osteopathic Center for Healing to learn more about the benefits of acupuncture, as well as to learn whether it’s likely to help ease your symptoms.
