Many people are now aware that acupuncture in Bellingham is a great alternative treatment for back injury and lower back pain. However, some of them are worried about the needles that may only add to the pain. The fact is, despite the use of needles, acupuncture is surprisingly a pain-free, very effective method of pain relief for back injury, lower back pain and many other types of chronic and acute pain.
What is Acupuncture?
Acupuncture involves the insertion of tiny needles into specific points in the body to help maintain or restore balance and health in the body and resolve diseases. It is the most well-known and very important component of traditional Chinese Medicine. In Western medicine, acupuncture is seen as merely a needling process although it actually has several forms in traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Some of the other components of TCM are herbal medicines and Yin and Yang breathing techniques.
For over 5,000 years in China, acupuncture has been practiced to treat various illnesses and not just for the relief of pain. Since solid steel was not created 5,000 years ago, the first acupuncture needles were made of thin bamboo shoots or even sharp stones. This means that the ancient Chinese were using needling techniques and acupuncture successfully on each other before they knew what was beneath the ‘needle’ they were putting in the body.
The traditional style of acupuncture follows the principle of ‘Meridian Points’ within the body. Acupuncture doctors explain that those meridian points were channels of energy that associate with different bodily organs – the Heart, Large Intestine, Liver, etc. These channels run through all parts of the human body. In acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, the traditional way to relieve pain is to tap the proper channels of energy through the use of a needle. There are several types of pain that acupuncture can treat: back spasms, buttock pain, back aches, tooth aches, headaches, migraines, foot pain, ankle pain, shoulder pain, stomach pain, and many others. Many times, the needle may not necessarily be inserted into the actual site of the pain.
With regards to back injury and lower back pain, the traditional style of acupuncture has been proven provide pain relief for both acute and chronic back pain, back spasms, and back aches. Acupuncture treatment for lower back pain can lead to a significant reduction or even complete alleviation of chronic pain and back spasm; it even aids in the reduction in the long term alteration in the processing of pain of the brain.
In the United States for the past few decades, acupuncture has gradually become a more mainstream type of treatment. Besides being used for pain relief, it is now commonly used for pregnancy-related issues, addiction, weight loss, infertility, and even cancer. With more intensive research into the actual techniques of needling and how it works, a Western-conceived type of acupuncture called Dry Needling has become widely popular and accepted. Dry Needling is a treatment that also addresses muscle spasm. It provides almost instantaneous relief from buttock pain, back spasms, and back aches due to muscle spasm associated with back injury.
Muscle Spasm
When a person suffers from a back injury, his back muscles may spasm. This physiological response is meant to protect the area of the injury but causes painful back spasms and back ache. After a back injury, several of the muscles surrounding the pelvis tend to spasm. This causes buttock pain, lower back pain, and back aches that may not appear on an MRI or x-ray.
When the muscle spasm gets worse, it can create trigger points in the muscles which are the primary causes of back aches, back spasms, buttock pain, and back pain. Dry needling can be used to eliminate the trigger points in the body that in turn, leads to the relief of back spasms, back aches, and lower back pain.
Dry Needling is a technique involving fast and rapid needling of the affected points in the body to effectively and safely break up the trigger points. This procedure is a bit different from acupuncture as it is only performed for 5 to 10 seconds, whereas in acupuncture the needles are left inserted in the body for 15 to 20 minutes. It has shown to be very effective in curing spine pain, buttock pains, back spasms, lower back pain, and back aches. Pain relief can be almost immediately experienced when the main cause of back pain after back injury, the trigger point, is eliminated.
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