Jeff Rippey

Usually, yes, acupuncture can improve nerve pain. Situations like this can sometimes require a bit of treatment to get things headed in the correct direction, so be prepared to attend at least 3-4 treatment sessions.

Also, it's important to make sure whoever is treating you has an L.Ac or R.Ac. credential issue by your state.

Usually, yes, acupuncture is an excellent treatment for restless legs. I work with this issue quite a bit and I'm generally able to make people more comfortable.

Please make sure whoever treats you has an L.Ac. or R.Ac. credential issued by your state.

Yes, acupuncture can generally improve pain from a herniated disc.

Yes, low back pain is a condition for which we have nearly overwhelming scientific evidence for acupuncture's effectiveness.

Acupuncture and Chinese medicine do not work as conventional medicine does. Chinese medicine recognizes 6 or 7 different kinds of headaches and without knowing specifically which one *you* are experiencing, I cannot give you any points that might prove useful. Acupuncture is generally a very good treatment choice for headache and migraine. If you'd like to try acupuncture for your issue, go see a local board-certified and state licensed acupuncturist. You can start with NCCAOM.org's 'Find a Practitioner' lookup if you need help finding someone local.

Usually, yes. Acupuncture can help with any pain or discomfort you may be experiencing. Over several treatments acupuncture can often lower the inflammation and return the shoulder to normal function.

There are lots of different kinds of anemia; the causes can range from nutrient deficiency to auto-immune disorders. The methods for treating anemia will vary based on what kind of anemia you have. Your question doesn't specify the type of anemia, so it's difficult for me to provide any particular course of action.

The diagnosing clinician should have outlined a set of treatment options that typically work in cases similar to yours. My first suggestion would be to follow that advice.

Usually, yes, acupuncture can help to improve tendonitis at any location on the body.

I also practice Tung acupuncture, but I've never heard of anything like this happening before. Without knowing what points were utilized and what you were being treated for, I can't hazard a guess as to what might have happened. I'd suggest going back to the practitioner who treated you originally and explaining the situation to them. Most likely they'll be able to look back at their notes, figure out what's going on, and provide a remedy. In the meantime, you might try some light stretching of the thigh, hamstrings, shin, and calf to see if that provides any relief.

Some short-lived pain would be unusual, but not out of the question. There's no indication in your question for how long it has been since your treatment or how severe this pain is. My first suggestion in cases like this is always to go back to your original provider and let them know what's happening. They have your case history and their notes on what acupuncture points were used. This person is in the best position to understand what may have happened and how to fix it.

The 'how often' question is a fair one. It's very difficult to answer on the internet. I haven't evaluated you, I don't have any idea of your pain severity or even a rough idea of the pain caused. I usually base my treatment interval on a patient's reported pain level on a 0-10 scale. This is very subjective and usually requires some calibration. 0 is no pain whatsoever, 10 is so much pain the patient is unconscious or otherwise cannot function. For anyone whose score is consistently over 7 or 8, I like to start with 2 treatments per week for a couple of weeks. For anyone whose pain is transient (i.e. not constant) or consistently less than 7 on this scale, one treatment per week is usually sufficient. Statistically, a complete course of therapy is usually something like 7-10 treatments. The problem with statistics is they do not tell us anything about how *you* might respond - you could take more treatment, you could take less.

Acupuncture can be very effective for most kinds of pain. The evidence for acupuncture in pain management is almost overwhelming. Why it's not *the* treatment of choice is an interesting question.

Acupuncture is excellent at tapping into the body's homeostatic mechanisms. It can probably help, the question will be by how much? Usually in cases of hypertension (high blood pressure), I combine acupuncture with conventional anti-hypertensive medications. The drugs bring the pressure down quickly, while acupuncture is a more long term treatment. Most of the time, these patients can at least reduce their medication dose over time. Sometimes I've been able to get people completely off prescription medication. Each person is an individual case and one person's results doesn't necessarily map directly on to another individual.

I think you may want to combine acupuncture with conventional treatments.

That will depend on why you have shortness of breath. If this is mild to moderate asthma, early stages of COPD, or early stages of emphysema then, yes, acupuncture would probably be of benefit. If this is severe asthma, acupuncture can probably still help but you'll want to combine conventional medicine as well. If this is severe or late-stage COPD or emphysema, again you're going to want to combine acupuncture with conventional medicine. If you do not know what the cause of your breathing issue is, your first step should be a visit to your primary care physician and, possibly, a chest x-ray or CT.

There are many different kinds of anemia. They range from nutrient deficiencies to auto-immune conditions. Without knowing specifically what kind of anemia we're talking about, it's hard to tell you whether or not acupuncture will be of any benefit. There are techniques in Chinese medicine that 'build blood'. Some of these may be useful to you depending on what type of anemia you have. My best advice is to take whatever diagnosis and lab results you have currently to a few local licensed acupuncturists and see what they say. If you need help finding a local provider you can go to NCCAOM.org and use their 'Find a Practitioner' lookup. In a case like this, it's important to see an actual nationally board-certified, state-licensed acupuncturist - you want someone who is fully trained in Chinese diagnostics and who understands the complete system. A chiropractor or a physical therapist with a few hours of extra training will NOT do in your case.

Acupuncture can definitely help with the pain that usually accompanies a herniated disc. In time, acupuncture can help reduce inflammation and promote a degree of local healing.

Yes, acupuncture is typically a very good treatment for migraine.

Answering the 'how' question of acupuncture is extremely complicated. This is not a short discussion and would involve tangential digressions into the actual nature of science and scientific investigation, linguistics and translation, a re-think of how biological systems work, an investigation of how philosophy informs science and creates the basic framework along with an understanding of the assumptions inherent in that framework (which are always open to question).
In other words - this is not the forum for a long-form, interactive discussion that would result in someone understanding the 'how' or 'why' of acupuncture.
On top of that, headache is a lot more complicated in the Chinese model. We have more different kinds of headaches that we differentiate between and I'd need a lot more information from you (e.g. where, precisely, on the head do you feel these headaches; what is the pain like; is the pain fixed or does it radiate or move; do you always experience the headaches the same way and in the same place or do they vary; is there any relationship between hormonal cycles and your headache; any relationship between stress levels and your headache; do they often occur at the same or similar times of the day; how often are you experiencing headaches; what makes them better; what makes them worse. And this is only the jumping-off point, there are questions involving other body systems that I'd need to have the answers to in order to really understand what's going on in your particular case).
So, the short answer is: it's very difficult to have a 'how' discussion here. What I can tell you is that when it comes to headaches and migraine, the science behind acupuncture's effectiveness is firm. This is a condition for which we have abundant, high-quality evidence that acupuncture can help.

Maybe. Much will depend on why your hemoglobin levels are high. This is most likely a case where you'll want to combine conventional and Chinese medicine.

Yes, but...acupuncture does not always have to be done in the local area in order to get results. I often treat back issues elsewhere on the body and patients still get the pain relief they're seeking. Just because you have pain in a particular location does not necessarily mean needles must go there.