Types of Acupuncture and What They're all About

Best Types Of Acupuncture
Acupuncture has actually gained some recognition among the medical community only of late. In the face of overwhelming evidence, medical doctors, who once scoffed at Alternative medicine, are now slowly but surely acknowledging the many benefits of offered by alternative medicine. There are several different types of alternative medicine; one of which is Acupuncture.

What is Acupuncture?
Acupuncture involves inserting needles into pressure points of the body, mainly as a way to relieve pain. It has time and again proven its efficacy in relieving lower back pain, from which many Americans suffer as well as headaches, another very common malady. The jury is still out as to whether or not acupuncture can treat neck and shoulder pain, though it is often used for this purpose.


For this procedure to work safely and effectively, it should not be performed by anyone other than a trained practitioner. Before trusting your health and your fate to any Acupuncturist, you should contact the national Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and find out more about qualified practitioners in this field.

Origins of Acupuncture
Acupuncture is an Eastern healing art that originated in China. It has come a long way since then and today, the types of Acupuncture that are performed include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan and Western style. Although acupuncture gained notice about twenty years ago, it is believed that it was first introduced in America by Chinese railroad workers who used it to treat a wide range of totally unrelated medical of conditions.

While some in the medical community still scoff at any form of alternative medicine, acupuncture can no longer be ignored as it is becoming widely accepted as a pain treatment and does not have the harmful addictive side effects of other pain medications

What is Chinese Acupuncture?
Traditional Chinese healing is based on the theory of The Yin and The Yang or balance throughout the body. Acupuncture is but one of the many Chinese healing remedies and is believed to date back to the stone-age. Written accounts of acupuncture date back to 305 B.C. but there are some references to it that date back even longer. Legend has it that the technique of using needles in pressure points to deflect pain in other, totally different points of the body came about from Chinese soldiers who experienced pain relief in one part of their body while actually being pierced with arrows at a completely different site.


There are various pressure points throughout your body that the Chinese target for acupuncture. The needles are sterilized and safe and do not cause pain. There are fourteen channels that target blood flow in the body and are targeted in the Traditional Chinese Medicine form of acupuncture. Chinese acupuncture treats these different pressure points in relation to their effects on the rest of the body. The concept of Chinese acupuncture is to treat the entire body instead of just one part.

What is Japanese Acupuncture?
Japanese acupuncture has been around for thousands of years but was probably learned from the Chinese. As with Chinese acupuncture, Japanese acupuncture treats the entire body instead of the one ailing matter.


In addition to targeting pressure points to relieve pain, Japanese acupuncture is also used to effectively stop people from smoking. Many people who want to relieve themselves from this habit find Japanese acupuncture to be a great help.

What is Korean Acupuncture?
Korean Acupuncture is also much like traditional Chinese acupuncture and again, is more or less derived from the same principals. Traditional Korean medicine is called Chimsul and dates back to 202 B.C.

One common use for Korean acupuncture is to relieve pain from child birth. There are also several methods of acupuncture that are used to induce labor such as pin pointing the shoulders with needles. This is not widely practiced in the United States and Western countries because we usually use medicine to induce labor.

However, in countries where medications are not normally used for this purpose, acupuncture has proven to be effective in not only relieving the pain of birth but also giving the mother the ability to begin the birthing process.

What is Tibetan Acupuncture?
This is also very similar to Chinese Acupuncture and is used to treat pain. The methods are almost identical to Chinese acupuncture although the needles tend to be shorter. However, the pain relief is the same. Pain relief is usually targeted at the top of the body for lower back pain and the feet for headache relief.

What is Western Acupuncture?
In Western countries today, acupuncture clinics are springing up all over the place. One of the main reasons for using this ancient healing art in Western culture is the evident dangers presented in narcotics that are often prescribed to treat pain.

Earlier, in the west, physicians did not hesitate to prescribe medication to treat the smallest ailment. Acupuncture was definitely not on the list of approved medicines. Fast forward to present times and it is widely becoming more accepted by people in the West; especially as the dangers of prescriptive medications become more and more evident.

As more people began to get addicted to pain medications, it became necessary for pain treatment clinics to emerge. These clinics often employ the use of acupuncture as well as other natural healing remedies to treat pain without dangerous narcotics

Acupuncture is seeing more prevalence in the West and in European nations as many individuals are looking for alternative means to treat their pain and other minor ailments without having to resort to toxic and addictive medications.