Acupuncture can help reduce symptoms of inflammation and muscle soreness thereby speeding up the healing process and allowing you to recover more quickly from an injury. Acupuncture can also help with improving flexibility and decreasing muscle tension.

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Treatment can sometimes provide immediate pain relief to muscular tension but for others it can take longer to feel the effects of the acupuncture. It varies grately. As does how long the pain relief will last, for some it's a few hours and for others it can be a few days, weeks, months, even eliminating the problem completely. 

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Does it hurt?

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Acupuncture needles are solid and very, very fine (approx 0.05-0.2 of a mm) and feel nothing like a doctors hollow injection needle. You may not feel the needle go in at all. Very often with muscle tension we will feel a strong twitch as the needle goes in, this is a good sign :) Very often with acupuncture we are looking for sensation. We have more nerve endings in our face, hands and feet and it's likely these will be more sensitive than the rest of the body too. Patients very often feel a mild pricking sensation as the needle goes in and then a dull sensation or warming sensation as the needle touches the point of energy, which maybe more intense with muscular tension. 

 

Where do the needles go?  

 

Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe the human body has more than 2,000 acupuncture points connected by pathways or meridians. 361 of these are now considered standardized acupoints. There are however around 12 different types of acupuncture being performed in the world today, and each of these may vary in the points they use. All types of acupuncture treatment aim to improve health and wellbeing and I practise a mixture of Traditional Chinese, Five Element and Tung acupuncture. Sometimes it isn't obvious why the needles are inserted in a particular place on the body. This is because our body is connected from head to toe both muscularly and through the meridian pathways, thereby if we want to influence the shoulder we may choose points on the hand or leg rather than going straight to the site of pain, for example. 

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How long are treatments? 

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Treatments are between 45 mins and 1 Hour long.  The first treatment may be up to 1.5 hours. In this inital treatment a full patient history is taken and a little time spent getting to know you and give you time to ask any questions you may have. Very often we do not treat the issue until the second appointment as it can take time to gather all the information we need at the beginning.

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How many treatments will I need? 

 

This varies between patients and the severity of the condition. Generally it is good to see a patient once a week for 4 or 6 weeks to allow the body time to benefit and rebalance. There after the patient and practitioner can decide how often it would be for the best outcome. 

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Contraindications 

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As with any medical treatment, there are certain contraindications for acupuncture treatments, including:

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• Drug or alcohol intoxication

• Use of a pacemaker

• A seizure disorder

• Bleeding disorder such as hemophilia or use of blood thinners

• Infections skin disorder or disease

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And lastly please let me know if you are pregnant, or trying to get pregnant, needling in the abdominal and lumbosacral area should be avoided. There are also certain points eslewhere on the body which should not be needled as they may stimulate early labour.