Jeff Rippey

Not being a chiropractor, I'm obviously biased. I've been in practice for a while and I've co-treated patients with lots of different providers, including chiropractors. In my experience of sciatic pain cases, acupuncture typically provides better pain relief that lasts longer relative to chiropractic adjustment.

Usually, yes, acupuncture can help reduce or relieve pain in the posterior shoulder.

Yes, acupuncture works for neck pain. It's probably in the top 3 things that I treat on a fairly regular basis.

Yes, acupuncture can relieve tight muscles. This is something I do for a number of patients.

Acupuncture can help with tight muscles and tendons. How quickly you're going to experience relief is going to depend on a lot of factors and there's not enough information provided here for me to give you a good guess.

Acupuncture treatments are cumulative, so you need to be prepared to attend at least 3 or 4 sessions before you decide whether or not it's working.

Yes, acupuncture can help a person manage seasonal allergy. Please make sure you're seeing an NCCAOM board certified provider who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state.

It's almost impossible to predict how many treatments might be required to bring any given health issue under control for any given individual. The Chinese medical model is individualized, and everyone responds differently to treatment.

On top of that, acupuncture treatments are cumulative in their effects. To a point, more treatment gives better results.

There are a couple of general rules:

1. Patients need to be prepared to attend at least 3-4 treatment session before they decide whether or not acupuncture is working for them.

2. A full course of therapy is often in the 10-12 treatment range.

I'd need a lot more information to even hazard a guess on how many treatments might be necessary. Chinese medicine is individualized. This approach cuts two ways:

1. Not everyone experiences the same or similar symptoms for the same underlying reason(s). Since the underlying causes can be different, the treatments have to be different.

2. Not everyone responds the same way to acupuncture or herbal medicine. Some people get results very quickly, some people get results more slowly, and some people - no matter who the provider or how many visits - never get results. Currently, there's no good way to predict which of these cases you, as an individual, might fall into.

It also matters how severe the migraine and how long you've been experiencing them. Chronic issues often take longer to reach resolution, all other things being equal. All that being said, I specialize in pain management and I work a lot with migraines and headaches. Speaking very generally, I usually have the pain levels, episodic frequency, or both trending downwards by the 4th or 5th visit. A full course of treatment might be in the 10-12 range. I've had people go shorter and I've had people go longer. If you decide to pursue acupuncture for this issue, please make sure your provider is NCCAOM board certified and licensed by your state as an acupuncturist.

There is no one point for the treatment of anything in Chinese medicine. In order to even begin to give you an answer to this question, I'd need a great deal more information about your headaches. Where on your head do you feel the pain? What does the pain feel like to you? How does the headache start? If it changes/moves, how does it evolve? If these are chronic headaches, do you feel them in the same place every time or do they move around? Is there a particular time of day or a particular situation where you are most likely to experience a headache? What makes them better? What makes them worse? What other symptoms are you experiencing?

In the Chinese medical model, there are something like 5 or 6 different kinds of headache, each of which has its own treatment. For a more complete explanation of why your question is essentially un-answerable, please see this blog post: https://www.findatopdoc.com/Expert/81225813-Jeff-Rippey/Why-It-s-Difficult-to-Answer-Acupressure-Pressure-Point-Questions.

If you're interested in trying Chinese medicine to deal with your headaches, go to NCCAOM.org and use their "Find a Practitioner" look-up to get a list of local, board certified providers.

Impossible to answer. There are two reasons why:

1. I don't know why *you* are experiencing migraines. Chinese medicine is individualized, which means that people may not be experiencing the same or similar symptoms for the same reason. We use a completely different diagnostic model and there's not nearly enough information provided for me to even hazard a guess as to why you're having migraines.

2. There are multiple different systems of acupuncture. These different systems often approach health issues in different ways and emphasize differing aspects of the Chinese diagnostic model. There is no guarantee that any other acupuncturist would choose to use the same points I might list.

If you're someone who has anxiety about the needles and where they might go, the best thing to do is go to NCCAOM.org and use their "Find a Practitioner" link. Get a list of local providers, call around to see who offers a free consult. Attend a few of these, meet the provider, let them give you a quick evaluation, and see how they might approach your issue. Then pick the one you are most comfortable with.

The answer to this question depends on what's causing your migraine. For most migraines, I would think acupuncture is the better bet. However, if the problem is a pinched nerve root in the neck somewhere, then chiropractic might be useful too. I specialize in pain management, including headache and migraine, and it's an unusual situation when I'm not able to provide some level of relief. If you decide to go the acupuncture route, please make sure you're seeing a provider who is NCCAOM board certified and licensed in your state as an acupuncturist.

In a medical context 'cure' is a tricky word. No treatment can claim to 'cure' anything unless the FDA says it can. Since the FDA doesn't really evaluate acupuncture, we can't claim to 'cure' anything.

Let's re-phrase - can acupuncture help improve nasal polyps or help to resolve any symptoms you may be experiencing due to nasal polyps? Hard to say, since you didn't specify any symptoms. Acupuncture has an excellent track record in the treatment of sinus congestion, runny nose, headache/sinus pressure, post nasal drip.

Specific to the polyps themselves, I'm not aware of any published literature showing acupuncture being effective in their treatment. Chinese herbal medicine, though, is another story. There are a couple studies showing the combination of acupuncture and herbs were effective in nasal polyp cases.

If this is something you'd like to try, I'd strongly suggest going to NCCAOM.org and using their 'Find a Practitioner' lookup to get a list of local, board certified practitioners. Since we're talking about potentially using Chinese herbal medicine, a PT or a chiropractor will NOT do.

Define 'hurt'.

There are a variety of sensations which can occur as a result of having an acupuncture needle inserted. For someone who has never had acupuncture before, some of these sensations may be new and it's possible to confuse them with pain or discomfort.

In and of itself, acupuncture is relatively painless. I say relatively because different people have differing levels of sensitivity and different pain thresholds. It's a mistake on the part of most acupuncturists to refer to the procedure as 'painless' because that's not always true.

There may be a mild pinching sensation on initial insertion of the needle. This should fade in a second or two. If the 'sharp' or 'pinching' sensation doesn't fade fairly quick, tell your provider and have that needle removed or repositioned.

Normal sensations include a dull aching or dull throbbing around the needle. Sometimes there is a short lived electrical sensation (like pins and needles) that propagates up or down from the needle site. There also might be a mild distending sensation, like someone blowing a balloon up under the skin around the needle.

If you're unsure about any sensation you're noticing after needles are in, talk to your provider about what you're feeling.

Define 'hurt'.

There are a variety of sensations which can occur as a result of having an acupuncture needle inserted. For someone who has never had acupuncture before, some of these sensations may be new and it's possible to confuse them with pain or discomfort.

In and of itself, acupuncture is relatively painless. I say relatively because different people have differing levels of sensitivity and different pain thresholds. It's a mistake on the part of most acupuncturists to refer to the procedure as 'painless' because that's not always true.

There may be a mild pinching sensation on initial insertion of the needle. This should fade in a second or two. If the 'sharp' or 'pinching' sensation doesn't fade fairly quick, tell your provider and have that needle removed or repositioned.

Normal sensations include a dull aching or dull throbbing around the needle. Sometimes there is a short lived electrical sensation (like pins and needles) that propagates up or down from the needle site. There also might be a mild distending sensation, like someone blowing a balloon up under the skin around the needle.

If you're unsure about any sensation you're noticing after needles are in, talk to your provider about what you're feeling.

In pain management cases, I always assume patients ask this question because the location in question already hurts and they're wondering if the addition of needles in that spot is going to make things worse. If this is your concern, I'd suggest trying to find an acupuncturist that practices mostly distant or distal acupuncture. Painful areas of the body can often be treated without having to place needles in the painful location. I've found that, in most cases, it's actually better not to place needles in the painful location.

In this case, you'd be looking for someone who practices Tung or Tan acupuncture. Depending on where you are located finding a skilled practitioner of these systems can be challenging. You can start with NCCAOM.org and use their 'Find a Practitioner' lookup to get a list of local, board certified providers. Then call around to a few and see who practices Tung/Tan.

I usually get excellent results for my rhinitis/allergic rhinitis/general sinus issue patients. This time of year, it's something I treat a lot. Expect to attend at least 3-4 treatment sessions, and make sure you're seeing an NCCAOM board certified and state licensed acupuncturist.

It's difficult to say how long acupuncture sessions might need to continue. Chinese medicine is individualized and it's difficult to predict in advance how any given patient might respond to treatment. The other complicating factor is that sometimes we're able to resolve an issue like headache, and sometimes the patient is looking at some level of maintenance in order to remain mostly symptom free.

The general rule of thumb for chronic issues is one month of treatment for every year a patient has been experiencing the issue. The vast majority of the time, problems are brought to some level of resolution long before this - but it's a timeframe that folks with chronic conditions need to have in the back of their mind.

Speaking very generally, your headaches should at least be trending down in either episode frequency, pain severity, or both by the 4th or 5th session. A full course of therapy might be something like 10 or 12 treatments.

How long the effects of any given treatment may last is highly dependent on where you are in the treatment cycle. Acupuncture treatments are typically cumulative - in other words, I'd expect the effects of the 5th treatment to last longer than the effects of the 1st treatment...all other things being equal.

I generally tell my patients that the first treatment's effects should last at least 24-48 hours. Sometimes the effect lasts longer, sometimes it lasts much longer.

Weight loss can be a tricky thing to work with. There are few treatments available which are going to over-ride poor food choices. To put it another way - most weight loss happens in the kitchen, rather than a treatment room.

If your diet is in a good place, then I'd expect to see something in the range of 1-2 lbs of weight loss per week (on average, you'll probably experience more loss up front with a gradual level-off).

Once a month is a typical maintenance interval for patients whose problems are largely resolved and they just want to stay on top of things. If that describes where you are in your treatment plan, then, yes, it's enough.

If you've just started acupuncture for your back pain, though, I'd be surprised if you get much traction with that amount of time between treatments. Usually I see pain management patients once a week for 3-5 weeks and then space the treatments out until either the pain goes away completely or we hit some maintenance interval that works for the patient.

Whenever there is unusual swelling, it's always worthwhile to try to figure out what's causing it. Edema (fluid build up/swelling) in the low legs can have a few causes and heart failure is among the issues that needs to be ruled in/ruled out.

Acupuncture, and particularly moxibustion, can often help resolve swelling, but if there is an underlying heart issue that is left undiscovered or untreated the swelling is the least of your problems.

I'd suggest starting with your primary care physician to see if they can figure out why your legs are swelling. If more serious root causes are ruled out, then you can pay a visit to NCCAOM.org and use their 'Find a Practitioner' link to get some local, board certified acupuncturists who may be able to help.