San Diego Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a safe and usually effective method of treating common muscle pain and overuse injuries in athletes and active people. Acupuncture is based on the concept of "Qi" (pronounced ch'e) which represents a flow of energy through the body. Acupuncturists believe that when an injury occurs to the body, the normal "flow" of Qi through the body is impaired or slowed. Acupuncture attempts to remove the blockage to the normal flow of Qi by placing needles along different meridians or energy flow pathways through the body.

Acupuncture has been practiced in China and other Asian countries for almost 5000 years. Acupuncture as become more accepted by Western medicine over the past 40 years as more patients turn to alternative or complimentary medical treatments. The National Institute of Health actually now studies the potential benefits that acupuncture can have for some patients.

Find out more about acupuncture in the video below

 Even professional cyclists are finding the benefit of acupuncture in helping them recover from chronic injuries. The Cycling News website currently features and article on how sports acupuncture is used by the cyclists on the Garmin professional cycling team.

Insight: Treating The Peloton's Wearied Warriors | Cyclingnews.com

A recent study from the John Hopkins Medical Center published in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine looked at the benefits of acupuncture on patients with chronic shoulder pain. The study looks at patients with shoulder pain that had been present for at least 8 weeks and had been diagnosed with either rotator cuff tendinitis or osteoarthritis of the shoulder. The 31 subjects received 12 acupuncture treatments or sham acupuncture treatments over the course of 6 weeks. At the end of the 6 week study, the 31 subjects were reexamined and the change in their shoulder score (SPADI) was recorded.

The researchers found that while all three treatment groups demonstrated some improvement, the two groups that received either tradition acupuncture or a individually modified acupuncture treatment protocol had the best results when compared to the group that received the sham acupuncture treatments.

Most Americans may not be aware of the benefits of acupuncture for chronic pain and injuries such as shoulder pain and rotator cuff tendonitis. Acupuncture has been a part of tradiitonal Chinese medicine for over 3000 years.

If you are looking for an acupuncturist in San Diego

 Another, larger study, by researchers in Spain, looked at the effect of single point acupuncture when combined with physical therapy for chronic shoulder pain from rotator cuff tendonitis or subacrominal bursitis versus traditional physical therapy without acupuncture. This study enrolled a total of 425 patients. The patients all received 15 treatments of physical therapy over the 4 week period, but were divided into two groups that also either received acupuncture once a week for 4 weeks or a sham TENS unit stimulation to the same area where the acupuncture needle was placed.

At the end of the four weeks, while both groups had improvements of their shoulder function scores, the acupuncture and physical therapy group had a statistically larger increase in their shoulder function scores than the group that received physical therapy with the sham TENS unit treatment.