Can acupuncture help you?
You do not need to have anything specifically wrong with you to go for an acupuncture treatment; lots of people simply use acupuncture to promote a general feeling of wellbeing. However, most seek treatment for something specific. Some are not sure at first whether it is the right treatment because reliable information can be hard to access. The directory and links below will help you assess whether acupuncture could be a useful treatment method for you.
The World Health Organisationhas listed a number of medical conditions that can benefit from acupuncture( World Health Organization’s directory WHO) and has produced a review of controlled clinical trials for acupuncture ‘Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials’. The British Acupuncture Council (www.acupuncture.org.uk) provides the following fact sheets on a range of conditions that can benefit from acupuncture (click on complaint below).
- Anxiety
- Arthritis
- Back pain
- Bell’s Palsy
- Chronic Fatigue
- Chronic pain
- Colds and Flu
- COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
- Cystitis
- Dentistry
- Depression
- Digestive disorders
- Dysmenorrhoea
- Endometriosis
- Infertility (female)
- Infertility (male)
- Infertility (ART/ IVF)
- Fibromyalgia
- Frozen shoulder
- Headache
- Herpes (shingles)
- Hypertension
- Insomnia
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
- Menopausal symptoms
- Migraines
- Nausea and vomiting
- Post-operative pain
- Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
- Sciatica
- Sinusitis
- Sports Injuries
- Stress
- Tennis Elbow
- Urinary Incontinence
However, not all this research is universally accepted and in some cases there may be a division of scientific opinion arising from it. Feel free to give me a call if you would like to talk about the use of acupuncture on any of the conditions listed above or any other matter relating to acupuncture.
So much research is currently going on into acupuncture that the British Medical Journal (BMJ) is now publishing a quarterly companion volume dedicated purely to acupuncture called Acupuncture in Medicine (AIM).
In 2009, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended that acupuncture should be made available on the NHS as a cost-effective short-term treatment for the management of early, persistent non-specific lower back pain. The NHS website has a page about the evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Acupuncture/Pages/Evidence.aspx.
OTHER USEFUL LINKS
If you would like to find out more about acupuncture, you might like to use the following links:
- The British Acupuncture Council – www.acupuncture.org.uk
- The College of Integrated Chinese Medicine – www.cicm.org.uk
- The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association NADA-UK – http://www.nadauk.com/nada-uk-conference-2012.html
- The Journal of Chinese Medicine – www.jcm.co.uk
- Chinese Medicine Times – www.chinesemedicinetimes.com
- Zita West Clinic – www.zitawest.com
- Acupuncture for Childbirth Team, Oxfordshire – www.actoxford.org.uk
- Acupuncture Research Resource Centre – www.acupunctureresearch.org.uk