Both the National Institutes of Health and The World Health Organization recognize Traditional Chinese Medicine's ability to treat numerous common clinical disorders.
According to the National Council on Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), Traditional Chinese Medicine is among the oldest healing practices in the world. Included in TCM is the use of acupuncture which aims to restore and maintain health through the stimulation of specific points on the body.
In the United States, practitioners often incorporate healing traditions from China, Japan, Korea, and other countries, and therefore acupuncture is considered part of CAM (Complimentary and Alternative Medicine) in the US.
According to the 2002 National Health Interview Survey—the largest and most comprehensive survey of CAM use by American adults to date—an estimated 8.2 million U.S. adults had ever used acupuncture, and an estimated 2.1 million U.S. adults had used acupuncture in the previous year. This number is growing rapidly every year, and by early 2009 even the US Air Force will be using “battlefield acupuncture” to treat the pain of war wounds in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In an official report,
Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials, the WHO (WHO) has listed the following symptoms, diseases and conditions that have been shown through controlled trials to be treated effectively by acupuncture:
- low back pain
- neck pain
- sciatica
- tennis elbow
- knee pain
- periarthritis of the shoulder (frozen shoulder)
- sprains
- facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
- headache
- dental pain
- tempromandibular (TMJ) dysfunction
- rheumatoid arthritis
- induction of labor
- correction of malposition of fetus (breech presentation)
- morning sickness
- nausea and vomiting
- postoperative pain
- stroke
- essential hypertension
- primary hypotension
- renal colic
- leucopenia
- adverse reactions to radiation or chemotherapy
- allergic rhinitis, including hay fever
- biliary colic
- depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
- acute bacillary dysentery
- primary dysmenorrhea
- acute epigastralgia
- peptic ulcer
- acute and chronic gastritis
(Trials to expand this list are ongoing, so ask your practitioner about your specific needs.)
If you have questions about how acupuncture can benefit your particular condition, please
contact us for a free phone consultation and to set up an appointment.