WHAT IS ACUPUNCTURE?

AT THE YINOVA CENTER ALL OF OUR ACUPUNCTURISTS ARE LICENSED AND BOARD CERTIFIED. The needles we use are hair-thin and are designed not to cut the skin. They are inserted gently and shallowly and the experience of having acupuncture is in no way like having an injection.

While each person experiences acupuncture differently, most people feel only a minimal amount of sensation as the needles are inserted. Once the needles are in most of our patients tell us that they experience a feeling of relaxation and well-being that lasts for many hours after the treatment.

Acupuncture originated in China about 3,500 years ago and remains one of the oldest, most commonly used systems of healing in the world. It is still the primary medical system for 1/4 of the world's population. Although its use spread throughout Asia, little was known about it in the West until President Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China in 1971 when accounts of the use of acupuncture for pain control appeared in the New York Times.

Since then there has been a rapid growth in the awareness and use of Chinese Medicine in Western countries. Many colleges offer Master's degrees in Traditional Asian Medicine and the acupuncture profession is licensed in most states. In 1993, the Food and Drug Administration estimated that Americans made up to 12 million visits per year to acupuncture practitioners and spent upwards of half a billion dollars on acupuncture treatments.

There are several reasons for this rapid rise in popularity. Patients who have tried acupuncture are usually amazed and pleased with the outcome and tell their friends. Also recent clinical research supports the efficacy of acupuncture for a variety of conditions.

In the late 1970s, the World Health Organization recognized that acupuncture and Oriental medicine can be used to treat nearly four dozen common ailments, including neuromusculoskeletal conditions (such as arthritis, neuralgia, insomnia, dizziness, and neck/shoulder pain); emotional and psychological disorders (such as depression and anxiety); circulatory disorders (such as hypertension, angina pectoris, arteriosclerosis and anemia); addictions to alcohol, nicotine and other drugs; respiratory disorders (such as emphysema, sinusitis, allergies and bronchitis); and gastrointestinal conditions (such as food allergies, ulcers, chronic diarrhea, constipation, indigestion, intestinal weakness, anorexia and gastritis).

In 1997, a consensus statement released by the National Institutes of Health found that acupuncture could be useful by itself or in combination with other therapies to treat addiction, headaches, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, lower back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and asthma.