Not everyone has had acupuncture, but it’s gaining a foot hold in our culture today and most people at least know someone who has. One of the most common uses for acupuncture is treating pain. I have a personal experience with acupuncture for wrist pain that led me to begin studying this mysterious medicine nine months later.
When I was nine years old I fell off my horse and broke my wrist and spent the summer in a cast. After that, every year around that same time it would flare up and hurt for about a month or so and then it would go away. Then one spring when I was finishing my undergrad degree at Bastyr University it flared up again and one of the Chinese medicine students offered to give me a few treatments. This was my first experience with acupuncture so I had no idea what to expect. I went to the treatment and told him what was going on and showed him where it hurt. Then he starts palpating the opposite foot and asking if different points were tender. Of course he found three or four in that foot and ankle, and needled them. Then he had me move my wrist around while he manipulated the needles and then let me rest for awhile. I went to two treatments and haven’t had the wrist pain since. It’s now five years later, and I’m an acupuncturist treating patients with pain and disease, using similar techniques.
How does acupuncture work? Good question! No one really knows, it just works, and if they tell you they know they know not!