Pain can be caused by a chronic immune dysfunction, an infection, a physical injury or extreme stress.  More often than not, pain medications can only do so much to relieve nagging chronic pain.  Many people with chronic pain who have availed of acupuncture treatment have experienced total and long-term stoppage of their pain.  Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) resolves pain by allowing the body to heal itself.  TCM does not only aim to treat symptoms like pain medications do, it also rectifies disharmonies and imbalances in the body, assisting the body to help itself recover naturally.

Acupuncture Bellingham is one of the major treatment modalities of TCM.  Acupuncture acts by not only treating the site of the pain but also works in the curtailing of pain generation of the brain.  Therefore, unlike medication therapy, acupuncture treats both origins of the pain.  For low back pain, the mechanics of acupuncture treatment can be observed with the fibroblasts, the cells of the connective tissue in the sore area attaching onto the acupuncture needle.  The cells start to change shape and alter their own support system, presumably working to correct injuries that cause the pain.  While healing the affected area, cells also communicate with one another – one cell transmitting messages of healing to other cells in the surrounding area.  Furthermore, the nucleus begins to expand, which means that cell and tissue repair is ongoing.

While the acupuncture treatment may be concentrated in healing the sore area, acupuncture goes beyond this as it affects the whole body positively and the most important part of the body it affects is the brain.  The brain is the organ that allows one to feel pain.  Without that sensation, the body is deprived of a warning signal that something is terribly wrong with the body and needs medical attention.  An MRI scanner can observe acupuncture’s effect on the brain by altering brain patterns when treating an individual’s chronic pain

One of the best MRI studies where of observations of individuals with carpal tunnel syndrome. After acupuncture treatment, the pain was significantly lessened and the neural health of the arm became better.  The carpel tunnel brain wave pain pattern was more similar to that of a healthy person after the treatment.  The release of opioids in the body which acupuncture is responsible for allows the body and mind to relax helping to relieve pain even more.

Acupuncture does even more than treating the actual site of the pain and the pain generated by the brain.  Acupuncture helps in improving blood flow allowing for faster healing of the injured or affected area.  Acupuncture does not rely on medications to help the body to heal.  Instead, it does really assist the body in healing itself in a natural, effective and safe way.