Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medicine used to alleviate pain and promote overall health.  Acupuncture uses needles placed along invisible meridians that run throughout the body.  Today, acupuncturists also use lasers, magnets and electric pulses in addition to needles. Each meridian point has a specific meaning and can unblock and repair meridians and channels with vital energy or chi.   Through the stimulation of the meridians, an acupuncturist is able to restore balance and ergo health to the patient.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the needles are thought to control qi, which is the life force in their culture. However, in western medicine, the needles are thought to stimulate the central nervous system. Specifically, the needles encourage the release of chemicals that go to the brain, muscles, and spinal cord. In return, you may feel less pain. 

You may receive acupuncture in our Burleson, TX, office if you have sciatica. This describes when you have nerve-related symptoms that affect your lower back and often extend throughout your legs. Generally, it affects only one of your legs at a time. 

If you're suffering from chronic or acute neck pain, the needles can stimulate the muscles and nerves in the region and ease your pain and discomfort. 

The needles are thought to trigger the release of endorphins, which can help with headaches. It's also believed that acupuncture stimulates blood flow -- another way it can help with headaches. 

Other possible benefits of acupuncture include the following: 

Before you undergo acupuncture, you'll need to go through a comprehensive evaluation, consisting of looking at the color of your face, identifying where your pain is, and checking your pulse. 

Our practitioner will want to know about your medical history to ensure the treatment is safe for you. Certain people shouldn't have this procedure, such as those who have a bleeding disorder. If you receive acupuncture along with electrical pulses, the treatment could interfere with your pacemaker. 

As a general rule, though, acupuncture is safe when performed by a professional with adequate training and experience. Since your practitioner will use sterile needles, you have minimal risk of infection. Possible side effects tend to be mild and include minor bleeding at the insertion site. Bruising or soreness is possible as well. 

The art of acupuncture has taken thousands of years to develop and test.  Many patients compliment acupuncture with other therapies such as chiropractic care, massage, physical therapy and more.  This Chinese therapy is all natural and allows the body to repair itself with help from stimulating specific acupoints.  Acupuncturists believe in the importance of vital energy and it is this energy which helps to restore the energetic balance in the body.  When this balance is disturbed, patients are likely to feel sick or have pain.

Acupuncture involves more than just the obvious symptoms of a patient.  Acupuncturists evaluate all of the five senses, the manner in which the patient speaks, what he or she talks about, Chinese pulses and takes into account factors that may not necessarily be factors that Western doctors value as being important.  Many times, our physical pain comes as a result of an emotional imbalance rather than an actual injury or illness.  Acupuncture is now a widely accepted form of treatment especially for back and neck pains.

Chinese Medicine has a long history of treating mental and emotional problems.
 
Ancient texts describe the use of the so-called ghost points for what Europeans would have labeled possession by demons, or what is now recognized as dementia, psychosis, or schizophrenia. To treat you needle a series of 13 points sequentially. The window of the sky points, located on the neck and base of the skull treat symptoms like confusion, mania, or seizures. These treatments are particularly effective when blood flow to the brain is obstructed, by arteriosclerosis, for example.

Emotional balancing can be an unexpected benefit of standard acupuncture. People who seek treatment for a simple orthopedic problem often report that they are not yelling at the kids anymore, their insomnia is gone, or their mood has lifted.

Dr. Haygood is also a certified Reiki Master. Reiki therapy is a complementary therapy which works synergistically with acupuncture to restore the balance of chi to the body meridians and restore health.