Other Articles on Pain:

Contents

  • Pain: An Epidemic
  • The Growing Popularity of Acupuncture for Chronic Pain
  • What Kinds of Pain does Acupuncture Treat?
  • Get a FREE Treatment for Pain

Pain: An Epidemic

Pain is epidemic in America. It’s incredibly widespread and, if not contagious, then at least well-represented in every segment of the population.

Back pain

Did you know that:

  • It is the single most common reason people seek medical care, with millions of medical visits annually.
  • It costs the American public over $100 billion each year. 1
  • And yet, 1 in 4 Americans age 20 years or older suffer from chronic pain—that’s 76.2 million people2

And this is not even including those who are in acute pain, from fresh injuries and trauma.

Clearly, there’s a lot of pain out there that needs treating. And it takes its toll. Pain that’s left untreated ripples out to affect your whole quality of life, and your relationships with everyone around you.

Studies show that pain diminishes your ability to concentrate, perform work and daily tasks, socialize, and sleep. It can lead to debilitating effects, not only on your physical health, but on your mental and emotional health, resulting in depression and anxiety. 3

So what can be done?

If you’re suffering from pain and you’ve had trouble finding relief, acupuncture and Chinese medicine may be able to help.

Acupuncture

The Growing Popularity of Acupuncture for Chronic Pain

Acupuncture for pain relief is, not surprisingly, among the most widespread uses of traditional Chinese medicine, and is quickly growing in popularity. It’s being embraced by medical doctors, and the National Institutes of Health endorses ongoing studies of its effects.

It’s even being used to treat pain in the U.S. Air Force and Navy and by professional athletic teams such as the San Francisco Giants.

Vitruvian Man

What Kinds of Pain does Acupuncture Treat?

Acupuncture and Chinese medicine can treat pain throughout the entire body, from head to toe.

If you’re suffering from headaches, shoulder pain, low back pain, hip pain, knee pain, or foot pain, you can be treated.

If you’ve got carpal tunnel or sciatica, you can be helped. (See the recent study in the Clinical Journal of Pain about the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome, summarized in this article.)

If you had a car accident and you’ve got whiplash, acupuncture can be an important adjunct to your healing.

If you’ve been suffering from years of arthritis, you can find relief.

Of course, pain is not as simple as I might make it sound. Any good doctor will tell you that it’s a complicated phenomenon.

“Pain is complex and defies our ability to establish a clear definition. Pain is far more than neural transmission and sensory transduction. Pain is a complex melange of emotions, culture, experience, spirit and sensation.”

American Academy of Pain Management 4

Your experience of pain, and therefore how quickly and how well it resolves, depends on

  • the intensity of the pain,
  • the duration of the pain, i.e. how long you’ve let it “set in,”
  • the technique and skill used to diminish the pain, and
  • the overall condition of your body.

Because of its complexity, Acupuncture Ecology offers and integrates The Two Approaches to Pain Management with Chinese Medicine, which are ideally combined for both fast results in the short term and long-lasting relief in the long run.

The bottom line is, there’s no need to be in chronic pain with all of the treatment options Acupuncture Ecology makes available. You won’t know how acupuncture can affect your chronic pain until you try it. Although it may not work for everyone, acupuncture is free of side effects and is certainly worth an attempt at dealing with your pain.

Acupuncture is finding more widespread acceptance in the Western world. Americans are no longer accepting that prescription medications are the only treatment for painful conditions

Get a Free Treatment for Pain

If you’re in pain, I’d like to make you an offer. Come in for a free consultation and I will throw in a free brief treatment to show you the benefits of acupuncture.

While not everyone may respond to just one treatment, many people are able to notice immediate results with some of the techniques I use.

What’s the catch? First of all, understand that it will be very brief! Usually this type of treatment will last half an hour for best results, but your sample treatment will be several minutes long.

Further, if bones are broken or you’re in a medical emergency, please don’t rely on acupuncture but head for your closest emergency room. We are not equipped to treat serious acute injuries here! If you have stabbing chest pain or severe abdominal pain, seek out a medical doctor. But most everything else is welcome.

Finally, if you haven’t read it yet, please read The Two Approaches to Pain Management with Chinese Medicine so that you know that this single brief treatment is clearly a “branch” treatment and will not, in and of itself, permanently resolve the problem. But it may open the door for future healing to occur.

To make an appointment for your consultation, or to ask any questions, send an e-mail to David@AcupunctureEcology.com or call 541-220-1138. I’ll be happy to answer your questions and discuss your concerns.


1 National Institutes of Health. NIH Guide: New Directions in Pain Research I. September 4, 1998. Available from http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-98-102.html

2 National Center for Health Statistics, cited in American Pain Foundation: Pain Facts and Figures. Available from http://www.painfoundation.org/page.asp?file=Newsroom/PainFacts.htm

3 Chronic Pain in America: Roadblocks to Relief, survey conducted for the American Pain Society, The American Academy of Pain Medicine and Janssen Pharmaceuticals, 1999. Cited in American Academy of Pain Management: Pain Issues. Available from www.aapainmanage.org/literature/Articles/PainAnEpidemic.pdf

4 American Academy of Pain Management: Pain Issues. Available from www.aapainmanage.org/literature/Articles/PainAnEpidemic.pdf

Skip to content