Acupuncture

Acupuncture is ancient healing tradition from China and East Asia that, due to its effectiveness and versatility, has gained popularity in Western society.

It is a subtle yet powerful therapy in which the practitioner inserts sterile needles into specific points on the body, depending on your symptoms. Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine in general, respect the fact that when all systems in the body are functioning well, then good health will naturally arise.

If muscles are too tight, if the nervous system is too wound up, if the digestive system is not absorbing things well, if organs are not functioning properly, problems will arise. Acupuncture aims to treat the cause of your problem, not just the symptoms, by returning the systems, the organs and glands to optimum function. This leads to balance in the nervous system between ‘Flight and Fight’ and ‘Rest and Digest’. It allows hormones and other biochemicals to balance in the blood. It is a safe, drug-free holistic approach to good health.

The needles used are very fine and are single use.

What is the difference between Acupuncture and Dry Needling?

Dry Needling is the most basic sub-set of Acupuncture.

At Central Coast Body Mechanics we treat musculo-skeletal issues with dry needling techniques and have the advantage of being able to assess if there is a mental /emotional component to the injury. We can also diagnose and treat an over active nervous system (leading to excess stress being held in the shoulders or sleep disturbances contributing), dysfunctioning digestive system (leading to electrolyte deficiencies or auto-immune issues), etc.

Acupuncture can help relieve a wide range of symptoms and conditions such as:

  • Back pain, sciatica, tennis elbow
  • Tendonitis
  • Frozen shoulder, neck pain
  • Headaches and migraine
  • Sports injuries
  • All stress disorders
  • Insomnia, anxiety, depression
  • PMT, period pain, irregular periods, infertility
  • Nerve entrapments

Can acupuncture help you?

Wondering if acupuncture can help with your condition? Contact us with a short description about your condition and I will let you know if acupuncture can assist.

How does it work?

The Chinese have an understanding of energy moving through the body in the same way blood moves through the body. Blood is everywhere but moves around the body in major pathways which are the arteries and veins.

Energy (known as chi) is the same: it is everywhere but generally moves around the body in discreet pathways called meridians. There are 12 major meridians in the body and each one relates to a different internal organ, so there is a stomach meridian, a heart meridian etc. In a very basic way, we can think about these meridians in the same way we think about nerves. The Chi is the unseen force that moves down these pathways (like the nerve stimulus) that makes our muscles and organs and everything in our body function.

Along these energy pathways, there are particular points which act like sub-stations in an electricity network. (These are often at a point where the is a bundle of nerves or blood vessels or both). When you stimulate these points using acupuncture needles, it changes the quantity or quality of the energy moving through the meridian and therefore affects the function of the organ associated with that meridian.

Acupuncture aims to improve the health of the body by restoring a healthy flow of energy and blood throughout the body

Making the mind-body connection

In Chinese medicine, every organ in the body is linked with a particular mental capacity and a particular emotional capacity. If there is an emotion which, for some reason, is being suppressed, the energy flow along the meridian associated with that emotion will be constrained, often leading to a tightening of the muscles in that area.

For example the gall bladder channel (or meridian) runs from the side of the head down through the neck, the side of the body, through the buttocks and the side of the leg, finishing on the fourth toe. The emotion associated with the gall bladder is anger. So, if we are extremely frustrated (frustration being a mild form of anger), the energy often becomes blocked where the gall bladder meridian runs through in the neck or the buttocks. This is why we have the expression of frustrating things being a “pain in the neck” or a “pain in the bum” – because this unexpressed emotion tightens muscles, restricting blood flow, and can literally produce pain in these areas.

Acupuncture releases such energy blocks, allowing the muscles to relax and the emotion to be processed.