Heaven & Earth Acupuncture and Wellness » headache

How acupuncture is used for stress management

Kyle Smith — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:53:52 +0000

The levels of stress in our lives these days is quite high. The body’s response to stress is different for each person. The effects of stress on our bodies has started to be seen by medical professionals, and is the leading cause for high blood pressure. Acupuncture and herbal treatments help regulate the effects of stress on the body, while creating an internal healthy balance. This healthier balance allows us to interact with our environment in happier, healthier manner. IT allows us to engage and work with the situations in our lives that create stress, instead of either running away from them or meeting them head on with opposition.

According to c2clive.com, acupuncture is valuable treatment method to reducing stress and living healthier and happier lives.

As our lives have become more stressful and hectic, medical professionals have begun to see the effects of stress on our health. Stress is a leading cause of high blood pressure, which in turn is a leading cause of heart attack or stroke. But stress can be responsible for other disorders as well.

Most people have a “weak” point in their body that will react first when the person is under stress. For example, it may be that a person gets headaches when they are highly stressed, or perhaps they will experience digestive trouble in stressful situations.Learning to manage stress can be an important tool to improving a person’s overall health and well being. Not only can stress reduction create a positive impact on physical health. It can also help you sleep, communicate better in relationships and even perform better in school or at your job.

Traditional stress management techniques have included things such as visualization, relaxation and meditation exercises. But increasingly, people in Western society are beginning to recognize the value of the Chinese therapy of acupuncture. Acupuncture’s ancient approach to health care offers powerful protection against the damaging affects of stress. Acupuncture is based on the concept of maintaining balance and harmony within the body by facilitating the flow of life energy in it.

Read more @ c2clive.com

Set Up a Free Initial Consultation and Free First Treatment

Heaven & Earth Acupuncture and Wellness

675 N. Brookfield Road Suite #201, Brookfield Wisconsin 53045

(262)391-7824

Needling away your heaches with acupuncture

Kyle Smith — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:44:15 +0000

Do you suffer from chronic headaches? Acupuncture treatment may help.

Studies show that this ancient Chinese healing technique may help relieve many types of pain, including some headaches.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, health is achieved by keeping the body in a balanced state. Practitioners believe disease is due to an imbalance of “qi” (pronounced “chee”), or energy force in the body. A blockage in the flow of qi, they say, can lead to disease and pain. In good health, qi is believed to flow freely through certain pathways known as meridians. Acupuncture points are found along these meridians.

What is involved?

Acupuncture involves inserting fine needles into specific points on your meridians. Stimulating these points is thought to aid the body’s natural healing abilities.

The needles used are tiny and hair-thin. Most people feel little or no pain when they are inserted. Some say they feel energized by treatment, while others feel relaxed.

If you struggle with chronic headaches, acupuncture therapy may help. Among complementary treatments for pain management, acupuncture is one of the most widely used and well accepted by doctors.

Effect on migraines and tension headaches

Results from 33 trials involving over 6,000 people compared the use of acupuncture to medication. The findings showed that:

Almost half of those treated with acupuncture plus pain medicine said it at least halved the number of tension and migraine headaches they got over an average of three months.
Those treated with only acupuncture (no drugs) had fewer tension and migraine headaches than people who were given medication. They also reported fewer side effects.
Another long-term study of people with headaches showed that acupuncture treatments led to fewer missed work days, less need for medication and fewer visits to the doctor.
When “fake” or “sham” acupuncture was compared to acupuncture done in the correct manner, the results were mixed:

Several studies were done for prevention of muscle contraction headaches. They showed that people who were given the correct treatment had statistically fewer headaches than those who got the fake acupuncture.
The results were not as clear for migraine headache sufferers. People in both groups – those who got the real and the “sham” acupuncture – reported about the same reduction in headaches.
Experts say the pain relief from the sham treatment may be due to the hands-on, repetitive stimulus of the needles. It may also be because people believe acupuncture works. This is known as the placebo effect.

Is acupuncture safe?

Talk to your doctor about acupuncture before you try it. It is usually safe in the hands of a licensed and qualified practitioner. Soreness or pain could result if the needle isn’t placed properly, is defective or if you move during the treatment. If not done properly, you could also suffer an infection or damage to internal organs. Always be sure that the practitioner is using an unopened set of sterile, disposable, one-use needles.

Acupuncture therapy is becoming widely available. You may find it offered at your local hospital, at a pain center or through a neurologist. Ask your doctor for a referral. As with any treatment, talk to your doctor if your symptoms persist or get worse after this therapy.

By Jane Harrison, R.D., Staff Writer, myOptumHealth

Acupuncture Eases Migraines

Kyle Smith — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:32:30 +0000

There’s scientific evidence that acupuncture may help migraine sufferers.
In a clinical trial involving patients with acute attacks of migraine, real acupuncture proved more effective than two different types of sham acupuncture in reducing the discomfort of acute migraine headache two and four hours after treatment, researchers from China report in the medical journal Headache.
Real acupuncture is also “clearly effective” in preventing migraine relapse and aggravation, report Dr Li Ying from the Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and colleagues.
Although acupuncture has been used for centuries to treat migraine, “convincing evidence of its efficacy in alleviating pain has been inadequate to date,” the study team points out.
Ying and colleagues studied the effect of real versus sham acupuncture in 175 patients who were having one or more migraine attacks per month for at least one year.
How the study was done
During an acute migraine attack, the subjects were randomly assigned to one session of real acupuncture or sham acupuncture followed by observation for 24 hours.
In the real acupuncture group, needles were placed at genuine acupoints, while in the two sham groups, needles were inserted at predesignated non-acupoints.
According to the investigators, there were statistically significant differences between each sham acupuncture group and the “real” acupuncture group in pain scale scores at two and four hours after treatment.
More patients in the real acupuncture group than in the sham groups experienced complete pain relief (41% vs 17%), and most did not experience recurrence or intensification of pain (80%), the investigators report.
“These findings support the contention that there are specific physiological effects that distinguish genuine acupoints from non-acupoints,” Ying and colleagues conclude. – (Reuters Health, June 2009)