Treating Chronic Diseases With Acupuncture
Managing the symptoms of a chronic disease or condition can be challenging whether you have high blood pressure, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, or another condition. Although medication may keep pain and other symptoms under control, prescription drugs can cause mild to severe side effects. Acupuncture treatment provides a natural way to control the symptoms of your disease or condition and manage medication side effects.
Acupuncture Restores Your Body's Natural Balance
Acupuncture balances the competing Yin and Yang forces in your body. Imbalances can cause or worsen illnesses and result in blockages of Qi. Qi is the life force that circulates throughout your body via a series of meridians.
During acupuncture treatment, your acupuncturist inserts hair-thin needles into your skin at strategic areas to unclog blockages and restore the normal flow of Qi. Once Qi begins flowing normally, symptoms begin to subside.
Acupuncture Treatment May Improve the Symptoms of Many Diseases and Conditions
Nausea and dizziness may seem like a small price to pay to keep your disease under control - until those symptoms begin to disrupt your life. If you experience nausea, dizziness or vertigo due to your condition or the medication that you take, acupuncture can offer a simple way to feel better.
The treatment is particularly effective in combating nausea due to chemotherapy medications. In fact, Chinese researchers discovered that acupuncture treatment helped drugs that reduce nausea work more effectively.
Acupuncture also offers these benefits:
- Lower Blood Pressure. High blood pressure stresses your heart and increases your risk of heart failure, narrowed blood vessels, stroke, and diabetes. Acupuncture treatment may help your brain control hormones that affect blood pressure and reduce the production of a kidney enzyme that affects your blood pressure level.
- Fewer Migraines. Acupuncture can reduce the intensity and frequency of migraines. The treatment prompts your body to produce natural pain killers, reduce inflammation in your neck and head, and turn off pain signals.
- Effective Pain Relief. Pain can be one of the most unpleasant aspects of living with a chronic disease or condition. Luckily, acupuncture offers an all-natural way to handle pain and may even help you avoid using opioid medications to treat your symptoms. Emergency room patients who received acupuncture treatments at Aurora Health Care in Minnesota reported less pain and nausea after treatment. Their pain dropped from 6.5 to 3.4 (based on a 1 - 10 pain scale, with 10 being the worst pain).
- Reduction in Gastrointestinal Symptoms. Acupuncture may reduce diarrhea by boosting your immune system response. Treatments can also decrease stomach acid, easing acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD) symptoms and decreasing your risk of developing an ulcer. Acupuncture treatment offers other gastrointestinal benefits, including less bloating, abdominal pain, inflammation, gas, and constipation.
- Better Breathing. Seeing your acupuncturist on a regular basis can help you avoid breathing issues due to asthma or chronic bronchitis. Acupuncture may help keep the small airways in your lungs open. The treatments may make breathing easier and also reduce flareups.
- Improved Management of Many Diseases and Conditions. Acupuncture treatment may help you control the symptoms of arthritis, fibromyalgia, sinusitis, depression, morning sickness, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, acne, diabetes, infertility, premenstrual syndrome, polycystic ovary syndrome, temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ), chronic prostate inflammation, and other conditions.
Are you struggling to manage your chronic disease or condition? We can help improve your symptoms and restore your body's Yin and Yang with acupuncture treatments.
Sources:
HealthCMI: Acupuncture Prevents Chemotherapy Nausea and Vomiting, 7/1/17
MedPage Today: Needles Help with Pain in the ER. No, Not that Kind, 4/19/19
UC San Diego School of Medicine: About Acupuncture
Health CMI: Acupuncture Matches Drug for High Blood Pressure, 2/16/17
American Migraine Foundation: Acupuncture and Migraine: Finding a Combination That Sticks, 7/25/17