Acupuncture on Point With Injured Athletes

What do Olympians such as Carl Lewis, Bonnie Blair, Morgan Hamm, and Super Bowl champions James Harrison, Jerry Rice, and Steve Young, all have in common? All have reported enormous benefits from incorporating acupuncture into their regular treatment programs.

Acupuncture has been gaining popularity in its reputation to successfully treat musculoskeletal injuries. Participation in physical activities may stress or damage muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints. Numerous Olympic and professional athletes depend on acupuncture as an essential part of their recovery from injuries.

Benefits of Acupuncture include:

• Reduced recovery time
• Decreased pain
• Decreased inflammation
• Reduced swelling
• Reduction of muscle spasms
• Improved blood circulation

Acupuncture is a modality that is part of a healthcare system called Traditional Chinese Medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicine has been established for over five thousand years, and according to the World Health Organization, one quarter of the world's population receives acupuncture on a continual basis.

Acupuncture points are commonly found where motor neurons enter the skeletal muscle. When an acupuncture needle is inserted into these points, neurotransmitters send a message to the central nervous system. This leads to a release of hormones, which decrease inflammation and initiate healing at the intended body areas. A significant advantage that acupuncture has over other medical procedures and drugs used for the same conditions is that the incidence of adverse side effects is substantially lower.

Acupuncture needles are always sterile and packaged to be used only once. They are polished smooth, solid, and scarcely thicker than a hair. The insertion of the needle is usually painless and most patients experience a deep relaxation and often fall asleep during a treatment. The needles are retained between 15 and 45 minutes and significant results are often seen after one to four sessions.

An excellent resource to assist you in locating an acupuncturist in your area is the

National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine .

Michael Kleinert

Michael Kleinert is the owner of Integrative Sports Acupuncture. His private practice is located in Encinitas, California where he specializes in the treatment of musculoskeletal sports injuries.

Acupuncture and Sciatica

Sciatica, rather than being a diagnosis in itself, is actually a set of symptoms that can have other causes, usually a disk injury (herniation, or slipped disk), muscle tension or hip injury. Sciatica refers to the pain one experiences when one ore more of the nerves of the lumbar spine are being pressed on in some way. The nerves exiting from the lower spine make up the Sciatic nerve.

Symptoms of sciatica may be: burning or knife-like pain in the lower back or buttocks, pain that radiates from the lower back into the groin, down the lateral sides of the leg, or the hamstrings. It can be hard to find relief from sciatica, and many people simply take bed rest in hopes that it will go away. Medical doctors will often prescribe anti-inflammatories or suggest over-the-counter pain killers to deal with this often horrendous pain. I feel strongly though, that while pain killers can be a necessity initially, taking them long term is rather like removing the batteries from your smoke detector when your house is on fire! Pain in your body is a clear indication that something is not working. By ignoring it through pain killers, you may be doing more damage to yourself over the long term.

Enter acupuncture. In my experience, sciatica patients almost always find relief through acupuncture, even from the very first treatment. In fact, I love to treat sciatica because acupuncture works so well on it that patients will often feel like it's magic! Acupuncture works by increasing the release of pain-relieving chemicals in your body, such as dopamine. As well, if sciatica is caused by muscle impingement (a common cause), acupuncture can help those muscles to relax, easing the pressure on the nerve.

Obviously, if you have a slipped or herniated disk you should see your doctor and/or chiropractor, and get x-rays so you can be sure of the underlying issues. However, no matter the cause, acupuncture is certainly a therapy you will want to look into.

Jean-Paul Thuot R.Ac

Jean-Paul Thuot R.Ac is an acupuncturist and craniosacral therapist, practicing in Victoria BC, Canada. His clinic is Stillpoint Acupuncture

Acupuncture and the Western Mindset

When you hear the word acupuncture, what do you think of? If you're like most people, probably some kind of voodoo image springs to mind, with pins sticking out of a poor victim. The truth is, acupuncture has an extremely long history and successful track record. While the western mind may have a difficult time understanding or accepting the idea of Qi (life energy), the evidence is all around us. The key to understanding acupuncture is to realize how acupuncture developed, and why it uses the terms it does to describe acupuncture's effects.

Throughout China's history up until very recently, dissection and surgery were taboo activities that carried severe punishments. This limited what the physicians of the time could do for their patients, and what they could do to further their understanding of the inner workings of the human body. Thus, they were forced to develop their own terminology for the body's inner workings, which they borrowed from the life and culture around them and based on the external effects that they could measure with their senses. From the canals in the farmlands to the transformation of wood into ash from the effects of a fire, and the understanding gained through meditation and Tai Qi, the doctors of ancient times developed a systematic approach to how the body worked, and how they could be effective in curing it when it stopped working.

Western Science and the Paradigm of Qi

Does Qi really exist? How do you even pronounce that word? Qi is pronounced "chee" and can also be spelled "Ji" or "Ki", in Japanese. Whether Qi is yet measurable by western science is still heavily debated. However, Qi as a metaphor can be amply examined and quantified. The role of Qi in the body is to give it warmth, life, to move the blood, to give awareness, allow for movement, breath and digestion. Thus, if you are having difficulty digesting food, it is correct to say that you may be suffering from a Qi deficiency in the Stomach, Spleen, or lower bowels. This is not mysticism, this is simply a way of describing one's symptoms so that an effective acupuncture treatment can be coordinated. To take another example, Qi is known to flow in channels rather like the canals in a farmland. If there is an excess of Qi in one channel, it will flow into another channel that may not be so overfull, and thus balance is maintained. If there is a blockage in the channel, the Qi will back up and cause pain, and possibly swelling or inflammation. Thus, if you have pain in an area of your body, it could be described as a Qi blockage as easily as saying you've strained something, or you have arthritis.

What I am trying to get at is that, while the terminology of acupuncture and Chinese medicine may seem alien, what it describes is easily understandable and quantifiable. That acupuncture has been around for over 3,000 years is a testament to the effectiveness of the system, whether science is able to prove or disprove the existence of Qi and the location of acupuncture points.

Science Versus 'Intuition'

In the West we have come to accept that "doctor know best" and that the medicine prescribed is safe and based on scientific study. However, the truth is that death caused by doctor care and the interactions of various medicines (iatrogenic deaths) numbers in the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands every year! This is not to say that there isn't a place for so-called Western medicine. Indeed, if you have just been in a car accident and are needing life saving surgery, don't have the ambulance take you to your acupuncturist! The tests, scans and scopes that are at a doctor's disposal are impressive, and give us an immense amount of information about what's going on inside your body, and that should never be discounted. On the other hand, just because a Western doctor is unable to accept or understand the principles of Chinese medicine does not mean that this system of medicine which pre-dates Western science by some 2,500 years is not effective in many cases. Effective, and, I'd like to add: free of side effects.

The Benefits of Both

When dealing with any sort of health issue, it is important to get as complete a picture as possible of what might be going wrong. This certainly should include a visit to your doctor, but might also include acupuncture treatments. I would caution against seeing any healer or doctor who tells you not to fully explore your options. Your health is your own, and taking responsibility for it is something only you can do. Visit your acupuncturist, get a medical diagnosis, and if at all possible try to get both sides working for you together. Doctors these days are encouraged to at least be open to other therapies, even if they themselves do not have training or experience in those therapies. Just remember: you are in charge of your own health. The more open to proven alternatives you are, the faster you will regain your health and well-being.

Jean-Paul Thuot R.Ac

Jean-Paul Thuot R.Ac is an acupuncturist practicing in Victoria BC, Canada.