Not only have I NEVER had Acupuncture--I've NEVER had a Massage! :-) So, at 67, I will probably still Do Neither. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie....is MY Philosophy!

I have a friend that regained 80% of her hearing on her left ear afte accupuncture. She had 100% hearing loss on that ear. It's pretty incredible. 

I wasn't keen on accupuncture till I had a breech baby that was 10 days passed my due date, that's when I received accupuncture with chiropractic adjustments. My baby not only turned, I was able to give a healthy birth and in an 1hour and 30 minutes! 

Acupuncture is a placebo, which is fine if placebo's work for you. However, all this "energy blockage" seems a little silly when you there is no way to measure this "energy". I wish people would consider this before spending money on these types of "medical" procedures. Tests on acupuncture have shown that sham acupuncture is just as effective as the real thing, which proves there are no meridians. Everyone should consider this before seeing any of these types of practitioners. Furthermore, please note, not all states require licenses to practice acupuncture. You could be seeing ANYONE with no medical training. 

Acupuncture worked for me on post-nasal drip, colds, and excessive fluid retention.

My western meds doctor told me there was nothing she could do about the fluid retention and that over a period of 4-6 weeks, my body would just "figure it out" and drain itself. When I suggested acupuncture, my western meds doc just laughed at me. The next day, in only one treatment, my acupuncturist helped drain me of 4 lbs of fluid. I have no doubt that acupuncture works and I personally think it's far more relaxing than a massaage.

That's "massage" -- sorry.

I am so relieved that you posted this! I have had some not-so-great experiences as well trying to find a new accupuncturst when my dear frend moved away. In general I do believe that people charge much more than you should. Maybe look for someone that works with a sliding-scale, which gives peopole the opportunity to pay what they can afford and what they feel the treatment is worth.

Also a note to Thea Bryan, I have seen and heard of many of the studies that you are referring to, and I believe those studies were done on cadavers(dead bodies) as far as my research has lead me, when studies were done on living beings the meridians are clearly visible, it is only when the "subject" was dead that the energy disapears.  Interesting no? I hope this helps :)

Wow! I have much to say on this topic that I don't know where to begin. I respect Christina Pirello very much, and on this topic completely disagree with her. I am a graduate student at Tai Sophia Institute (first acupuncture school in this country). I am in my second year. I am learning 5-Element acupuncture. I am taught to treat the whole person and not the disease (which is completely opposite of what Christina was talking about). In my tradition, we do not treat symptoms and teach our patients that symptoms are our friends and teachers. Research shows that acupuncture strengthens the immune system and heightens sensory perception... and that is it! Why go to acpuncture then? Well, you can imagine if it heightens your sensory perception, if you go for a certain symptom and are seeing a practitioner that is only treating the symptom, it is going to heighten your perception of your symptom. 

We are all energy beings... every organism on this planet is alive because of the flow of energy (hey, quantum physics says so!)...

I will write more later. I would particularly like to write to Alicia and come up with a response to Christina Pirello. I do not think her portrait of acupuncture is accurate or helpful. 

Love,

Candice

Not sure about acupuncture but I was taught certain Acupressure or Shiatsu techniques and they certainly do help others.

I used to wonder about it, you see how peoples veins can get clogged, always wondered about occilation to clear veins or knots in muscle fibres.

I will look into it more over the coming years but hear good things; still learning Chi-Kung myself or Qi Gong. 

I am a certified acupuncturist and doctor of chiropractic.  Christina's assessment was accurate and very well written.  Thank you.  We come from a culture that uses drugs and surgery to move energy around.  And we think this is normal and reasonable.  In my opinion and that of many, medical treatment is for emergencies only, when nothing else will work.  Please don't call it traditional.  Energy movement is traditional; acupuncture, chiropractic, shiatsu, Ama and many others.  Food has always been used to keep people well and prevent disease, as well as to cure.  Although it has become more recently a treatment for back pain, chiropractic originally was a way to move the nervous system energy through the body, especially at the spinal column area where it can easiy get bound up. 

Nobody need be afraid or frustrated with acupuncture.  If you understand Christina's explanation and keep your expectations within its definition, you can get amazing results.

Greg Meyers, those of us skeptical of acupuncture do not simply dismiss it because it seems silly to us, rather there is a large body of evidence showing acupuncture working no better than placebo. My reject of acupuncture is based on A: the scientific plausibility & B:the clinical evidence.
In double blind trails acupuncture simply does not work. In one study it worked equally as well a poking people with toothpicks in random spots

"Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years"
Im sorry, this is jsut an appeal to tradition, it does not logically mean acupuncture works or is of value.
Remember the last time someone argued "humans have been eating meat for thousands of years", well yeah, it didn't prove their point either.

"if you think that the body does not have energy"
The way that alternative medical practitioner use the term "energy" is not scientifically valid. "Energy" is the ability of a system to do work. However the body does not have so sort of mystical "energy field" or meridians through which energy flows, this is an entirely wrong use of the term energy.

"Acupuncture is science"
No, acupuncture is Pseudoscience

"Everyone in this country is so quick to hop on the bandwagon of self-medication and self-diagnosis without consulting real doctors and practitioners. "
yep, that is exactly what is happening, not going to real doctor but instead going to various quacks like acupuncturist, homeopaths, and chiropractors

*double blind trials

First of all read Albert E. Everything is energy.  Slow like matter.  Fast like light.  Then look up the stats on where the US with its expensive drug and surgury system ranks in the world.  I am not sure why people have such visceral reactions to the natural forms of healthcare.  These reactions are usually baseless and highly emotional.  Like talking about religion to an athiest.

While looking for informations about shiatsu I've read this about acupuncture:

"Also in 1997, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a consensus statement on acupuncture that concluded that despite research on acupuncture being difficult to conduct, there was sufficient evidence to encourage further study and expand its use. The consensus statement and conference that produced it were criticized by Wallace Sampson, founder of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, writing for an affiliated publication of Quackwatch who stated the meeting was chaired by a strong proponent of acupuncture and failed to include speakers who had obtained negative results on studies of acupuncture."

Personally physically I'm healthy, I always believed that I suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder or Generalized Anxiety Disorder at various level over time, in any case I'm a very socially anxious person... I've read that those who promote acupuncture believe that immersing someone in a very hard social situation would cure the disease... I'm still functional socially with persons I know very well but currently I don't get much pleasure being with peoples...

I've wrote it yesterday but didn't dare publishing it: "the person who said that ridicule don't kill was probably a bully, the person who advised to present the other cheek was probably a homosexual"...