Informative Essay On Acupuncture

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Recommended: Acupuncture as a form of alternative medicine

Definition
According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, acupuncture is the practice in which licensed health care providers stimulate specific points on the body using thin needles. Acupuncture comes from Traditional Chinese Medicine, (TCM) originating back to China over thousands of years ago. In the United States, practitioners use TCM as a complimentary form of health care. This means a doctor could prescribe pain medication and have the patient try acupuncture.
So far, there aren’t that many studies showing if acupuncture actually works. Most studies done on patients with chronic lower back pain, neck pain and knee pain show that it might help ease some pain. There are other studies done as well that show …show more content…

The Zhou Dynasty was the first era to use stone needles to help cure an illness (289-290). It became recognized in the United States in 1971 when James Reston had an appendectomy in China and acupuncture was used to successfully get rid of his postoperative pain (290). The next year, the NIH awarded their first grant to study acupuncture. Almost 24 years later, the US Food and Drug Administration approved acupuncture needles as medical devices (290). Under the Obama administration in 2013 the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, submitted a petition to elect acupuncturists as recognized healthcare providers …show more content…

I would like to believe that it works because I would like to try it at some point. From all the studies I’ve read, it seems that acupuncture if effective. It can help patients who are suffering from withdrawal symptoms and even patients who are living with phantom limb syndrome. Acupuncture seems to be most effective though with patients who have chronic pain. I have chronic lower back pain and my doctor has prescribed me to go see an acupuncturist because steroid injections did not work. The article that stood out the most to me was, Doctor Training and practice of acupuncture: results of a survey because it proved to me that some doctors do believe it works and if they believe it then maybe it does work after

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