Treatment of pain is the hallmark of acupuncture. The West came to know acupuncture mostly from the experience of New York Times reporter James Reston while he visited China in 1972 with President Richard Nixon. While he was in China, he suffered from appendicitis and was greatly helped by acupuncture for his post-operative pain. He described in the New York Times this experience and the neck surgery he observed in China that was performed with only acupuncture anesthesia.

As primary care physicians, we see first hands all kinds of acute pain, such as sprained ankles, sports injury, car accident related back pain and shoulder pain. Those can be easily treated in office with just one to two treatments. Patients are amazed by how quickly acupuncture works. For us, that is not surprising because acupuncture helps open up the blocked channel in area of pain. Thus no pain when there is no blockage.

For chronic pain like low back pain, acupuncture has been very helpful in decreasing the pain, minimizing dependence on pain meds, and improving quality of health such as sleeping, cooking, and walking. For the first time, patients are able to bend down to sweep the floor, buckle the bra, driving long distance, all because of the help of acupuncture.