Conditions Treatable by Acupuncture
If you are wondering, ” Can acupuncture help me?” the answer is probably yes. Acupuncture dates back thousands of years…and is still being used today because it works. Even better, it is a safe and gentle choice to treat many health conditions. The National Institute of Health Consensus states “one of the advantages of acupuncture is that the incidence of adverse effects is substantially lower than that of many drugs or other accepted procedures for the same conditions.”
Acupuncture treats the whole person rather than the disease, helping to restore the body’s balance.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a comprehensive list of diseases and conditions for which acupuncture has demonstrated therapeutic effect. Many of these conditions listed have been proven treatable by acupuncture through controlled trials. While reading the following list, please remember that Chinese Medicine treats the individual holistically, seeing a bigger picture than a single symptom or disease.
Musculoskeletal Disorders and Pain
- Sprains
- Knee pain
- Lower back pain
- Tennis elbow
- Sciatica
- Osteoarthritis
- Acute spine pain
- Periarthritis of shoulder
- Stiff neck
- Facial pain
- Rheumatoid arthritis
Emotional and Psychological Disorders
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
- Depression
- Schizophrenia
AddictionÂ
- Tobacco dependence
- Drugs
- Alcohol dependence
Respiratory Disorders
- Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
- Bronchial asthma
- Pertussis (whooping cough)
Eye, Ear, Nose, Throat, and Mouth Disorders
- Sore throat (including tonsillitis)
- Epistaxis (nosebleed)
- Earache
- Deafness
- Ringing in the ears
- Eye pain
- Dental pain
- Temporomandibular (TMJ) disfunction and pain
Neurological Disorders
- Headache
- Neuralgia
- Facia spasm
- Meniere’s disease
- Bell’s palsy
- Neuropathic bladder in spinal cord injury
- Radicular and pseudoradicular pain syndrome
- Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
Gastrointestinal Disorders
- Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteritis or due to gastrointestinal spasm)
- Acute stomach pain (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, gastrospasm)
- Biliary colic
- Acute bacillary dysentery
- Irritable colon syndrome
- Ulcerative colitis
- Diarrhea
- Nausea and vomiting
- Cholecystitis, cholelithiasis
Circulatory Disorders
- Hypertension (essential)
- Hypotension (primary)
- Angina pectoris
- Pulmonary heart disease
- Breathlessness in COPD
- Stroke
Gyneocological / Obstetric Disorders
- PMS
- Labor pain
- Difficult lactation
- Morning sickness
- Malposition of fetus
- Delayed labor (acupuncture is used to induce)
- Dysmenorrhea (painful menses)
- Female infertility
- Hypoovarianism (inadequate ovarian function)
- Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS; Stein-Levinthal syndrome)
Genitourinary Disorders
- Urethral syndrome (urinary frequency, urgency, painful dysuria in the absence of specific infection, obstruction, or dysfunction)
- Infertility in men and women
- Renal colic
- Sexual dysfunction
- Urinary tract infection (UTI)
- Retention of urine
- Urolithiasis (stones in the urinary system)
Miscellaneous
- Chemotherapy/radiation side effects
- Diabetes
- Leukopenia (low white blood cell count)
- Post-operative pain
- Cancer pain
- Dermatological disorders, including acne
- Obesity
- Fibromyalgia
WHO.Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials 2003.
Believe it or not, this is only a partial list. If you have any questions about what acupuncture can do for you, call us at (575) 613-8130 or email taosacupuncture@gmail.com