The most important thing I need to explain to you is that acupuncture works by helping the body get more out of its own natural healing resources. Our bodies produce a wide range of natural pain relieving substances, natural anti-inflammatory chemistry, hormones, immune system enhancers, and so forth, all without the need for outside drugs. In fact, some of our most effective drugs are man-made synthetic copies of the chemistry our body makes naturally, like cortisone. In modern medicine we made the mistake of assuming that when a problem lingers and is not healed right away by our internal natural resources, this must mean it is beyond our body’s ability to heal. We then look to bring-in outside resources like drugs or surgery to address the problem. The fact is though, that just because a problem is not healed right away by our internal resources doesn’t necessarily mean it is beyond those resources. We don’t always get 100% from our inside self healing resources any more then we always get 100% out of our brains’ resources or our muscles’ resources. Acupuncture helps squeeze more out of our natural ability to heal ourselves- to get us closer to 100% full potential.   

-Matthew D. Bauer, L.Ac. describing how acupuncture works. 

Once we see that acupuncture works through accessing our own internal resources to heal then we can understand that acupuncture can treat a wide variety of complaints from minor injuries to very serious internal diseases. When considering what acupuncture can treat we need to keep a very wide open mind. We can also see from this description what acupuncture can’t treat. If something is beyond the body to heal then acupuncture will completely work. In those cases patients will need to seek outside medical attention that might require very powerful medical interventions or face life long conditions. Acupuncture could still help these people but they should not expect complete resolution of their problems. Instead they may experience temporary or medium term relief. 

For the most part, patients that come and see me have conditions that are able to be addressed with acupuncture. After an initial intake I will be able to tell you how likely acupuncture will help you and give you a rough idea of when you should start to see benefits. As a rough estimate most people start to see benefits within the first five treatments. If a person’s condition is very poor, their problem has been around for a long time and has very little variability then the course of treatments will take longer to start to see any benefit. It is important that patients stick to their treatment plan to give acupuncture a real try. If you would like acupuncture to cure your problem in one or two treatments you will likely be disappointed and better off not coming in to begin with. People willing to give acupuncture a few weeks or a month are likely to be happily surprised as they see themselves improve.