Law Students

Does Acupuncture Work?

By Athar Khan

I’ve been dealing with knee pain for quite some time. A friend at work swears by acupuncture so I decided to try it out. The doctor picked three locations for the “points.” He also aimed a lamp (which I think was just an infrared heat lamp) at my knees. The pain started fading immediately and disappeared completely within a couple of minutes. Not bad at all! So, I asked the doctor about the theory behind this form of treatment — why does sticking a person with a needle alleviate pain? And, how effective is such a treatment in the long term?

First the doctor politely told me that pain is only a very small subset of conditions that can be addressed through acupuncture. Apparently, acupuncture can fix issues ranging from fatigue to increasing metabolism.

 The doctor offered an explanation of “a freeway system” in the body and how a “blockage” in Tustin could affect traffic conditions in Irvine. When asked what flows through this freeway system — electrical current? blood? — his answer was “Energy.”  

Since that explanation was not really very explanatory, I looked up Acupuncture on Google, Wikipedia and Acupuncture.com. Each has extensive information with plenty of pretty graphs and charts. However, I can’t seem to find a definitive answer such as “Acupuncture works because ___. The treatment is effective for ____ days/months/years.”

Have you ever had acupuncture treatment? How long did the effects last? I am interested to hear about your experiences with the treatment.

-Athar.

Full post as published by Atharkhan on February 19, 2008 (boomark / email).