What does acupuncture actually do?
This is a question I often don’t get asked when treating patients, and it surprises me. However, when talking to people in a casual or leisure situation, I realise this is a pondering in many people’s minds. And why wouldn’t it be? It is, after all, a bit eccentric to willingly lie down to have needles placed on you!
If you’re curious about how acupuncture creates a response in the body, you’re in the right place. There are two ways in which this question can be answered: the Eastern view or the Western view. They both arrive practically at the same place: people often feel better after an acupuncture session. Their pain reduces, they feel calmer, their hormones achieve a sense of balance, they can finally sleep more quickly, their digestion improves, and their headaches reduce.
The Eastern explanation for what acupuncture actually does concerns five vital substances essential for health.
These substances are interconnected and interdependent; maintaining their balance is crucial for overall health. If an imbalance occurs, it is essential to understand which organs and acupuncture channels are involved and need correcting. Your acupuncturist will ask questions, check your pulse, look at your tongue, and sometimes palpate your body to come up with the best points in the relevant channels to balance these vital substances.
There are 12 organs, each with an associated acupuncture channel that can aid the body to get back to balance.
The Chinese words for the channel system are Jing Luo. These words together emphasise the concept of connectivity within the organs and the pathway of the channels.
The link between the Eastern and the Western explanations of how acupuncture works is the fascia.
Studies using advanced imaging techniques have shown similarities between the layout of the acupuncture channels and fascial connections. Acupuncture can influence nerve activity and blood flow through the fascia network.
What is fascia?
The fascia is a dense, fibrous connective tissue that surrounds and supports our muscles, bones, organs, nerves, blood vessels and other structures throughout our body. It acts like a web, connecting everything and keeping it in place.
By placing an acupuncture needle at the correct depth and location in the body, this tissue distortion can travel considerable distances via the fascial network, creating a positive response along the acupuncture channel being treated and, ultimately, the organ it connects to in the Jing Luo system.
The Western explanation for what acupuncture actually does concerns several suggested mechanisms of action.
Lab studies have shown that acupuncture triggers the release of neurotransmitters and hormones from within the brain and in local tissue, including endogenous opioids - chemicals which affect pain relief and well-being. As these substances flood the bloodstream, they reduce our stress response and perception of pain and switch on a set of inhibitory neural impulses that travel down the spinal cord, affecting aberrant incoming signals into the nervous system.
The immune system is also challenged to take action with acupuncture, activating the self-healing mechanisms. It produces a favourable effect on natural killer cell activity and mast cell activation, which can explain acupuncture’s anti-inflammatory effect on the body.
Another aspect to consider is the different segments of the spine, the nerves out of each of these segments, and the organs and structures they support. Most pain conditions, as well as some circulatory and neurological pathologies, will have a component of sensitisation of a spinal pathway. Let’s take the area of your back, at the waist level, as an example. This is the fourth lumbar segment, and using acupuncture in this area has the potential to affect a range of tissues and organs supplied by the nerves coming out of this segment: the hip and knee joint (sclerotome), the quadriceps, some fibres into the hamstrings, the shin (myotome), the skin on the inside of the lower leg (dermatome) or the ovaries, colon and testes (viscerotome).
I hope that helps explain what acupuncture actually does. You can always get in touch if you want to explore if acupuncture is the right therapy for you.