HOW DOES ACUPUNCTURE WORK?

This is my understanding  of how acupuncture works based upon my education and experience treating the public.  

Sterile single use needles are inserted into the skin at specific points.  The nervous system reacts to this "false trauma" and the stimulation of the nervous system prompts the body to adjust circulation to specific areas.  

Important to note that the further we get from the center of our bodies, the more nerves we have.  So our feet and hands have many times the nerves as the skin on our torso.  Some of the strongest points are on the tips of our fingers and toes.  From a Western perspective we can say that often acupuncture is working to increase function by stimulating nerves.  Of course there are many other methods to affect change, but often it is through the nerves.

Acupuncture generally, is trying to affect change in circulation.  There is a saying in Chinese Medicine, "where there is blockage, there is pain."  Blockage here refers to circulation.  The more I work with muscles and tendons, the more I think the chief issue in pain complaints is first and foremost, poor circulation.  When you have a muscle that is tight and hard, the circulation is poor.  The muscle is not allowing enough nutrition in to the tissues and toxins and byproducts are unable to leave; the muscle cannot relax.  Acupuncture has many different methods to adjust the circulation.  

(In trigger point therapy the needle can physically fasciculate the muscle causing it to relax and return to normal circulation.  This is a more modern approach to acupuncture and I will leave that for a separate discussion.)

In this discussion I am referring to meridian acupuncture.  Meridians are a chief pillar of Chinese Medicine theory.  Meridians are pathways by which the body feeds itself.  Many nerves and blood vessels run along the meridian lines.  While there is not very much that explains it in Western Medicine, there is currently a lot of research into interstitial flow that I believe is a wonderful mirror of the processes at work with meridians.  In Western Medicine interstitial flow is a fluid that bathes all your cells delivering substances to and from cell bodies.  Blood vessels only reach a small fraction of your body's cells.  The majority of transport is done by interstitial flow.  In fact there is over twice as much interstitial fluid in you body as blood.  The lymphatic system cleans and maintains this interstitial fluid.  Much like the streams and rivers of the earth, the fluid flows in pathways in your body.  These pathways are the meridians of Chinese Medicine.  

In acupuncture we are choosing the points we use based on our understanding of these meridian pathways.  That we can affect the circulation (and therefore the function) of tissues by needling further away from it.  When circulation returns, function improves and we have a reduction in pain.  We are in effect asking the body to heal itself.  This is the beauty of acupuncture.  Healing without side effects and without the (mostly) toxic chemicals of medications that your body must later break down and process.   Each acupuncture needle is in effect saying to your body, "Pay attention here!"