Jeff Rippey

Yes, acupuncture can usually help plantar fasciitis. I've worked with several cases and typically get good resolution for patients.

I treat a lot of heel pain, so yes, acupuncture can be an excellent choice in this case.

Yes, acupuncture can help with foot pain. I've worked with a variety of foot issues from Morton's neuroma to plantar fasciitis, Sever's disease to a variety of neuropathies. All these issues respond very well to acupuncture treatment.

Depends on how bad the tear is. Acupuncture can definitely help you manage the pain/discomfort. If it's a minor/small tear acupuncture and Chinese medicine can be a good treatment option, but if it's a severe tear you might need surgery for a full remedy.

For the best results, please make sure you're seeing a provider who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. Outside CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get a list of folks local to you.

Yes, acupuncture is a good choice for any kind of pain - including wrist pain.

For the best results, please make sure you see someone licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. Outside CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get a list of local providers.

Usually, yes, acupuncture is a very good choice for knee pain. If you haven't already, I'd suggest at least getting a knee x-ray so you know what you're dealing with in terms of any potential joint deterioration. Knowing this will help to set expectations around what kind of result you might get from acupuncture.

If there is a lot of deterioration, acupuncture can help manage the pain but you may also need to look in to other treatment options. If there's minimal or no joint deterioration, acupuncture may be all you need.

When choosing a provider, you'll get the best results by seeing someone licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. Outside CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get a list of folks who are local to you.

Without knowing your entire presentation and being able to feel your pulses, it's hard to say. Chinese medicine is highly individualized and there may be other issues/symptoms you're experiencing that, to a conventional doctor, may not be related, but to someone who practices Chinese medicine could be decisive in terms of diagnosis.

Speaking generally, Chinese medicine tends to excel in those cases where conventional medicine is unable to make a concrete diagnosis. We're using a different explanatory model which often allows us to grasp the root cause of the problem.

In terms of expectations, I'd think that by your 3rd or 4th treatment you should be noticing a change in your condition - probably decreased pain/discomfort and possibly increased GI motility. After a course of therapy (8-10 treatments), you should definitely notice a change in your situation. Possibly a remission of symptoms, but a definite increase in your quality of life.

If you've had a cough that has persisted for more than 7 days, your first stop should be your primary care physician. If they can't find anything wrong (which happens more often than you might think) then, yes, acupuncture can probably help.

In my experience acupuncture can be excellent for heading off a cold - like if your acupuncturist happens to catch it in the first day or two where you're experiencing symptoms. After that, acupuncture can help manage the symptoms a bit and may take a day or so off recovery time.

Assuming the cause of your bronchitis isn't bacterial or fungal (in which case you'd need antibiotics), yes, acupuncture can probably help with the inflammation and shortness of breath.

Cure is a fairly loaded term and, technically, in a medical setting, it's FDA regulated. What that means is it's very dangerous for someone outside the conventional medical industry to claim to "cure" anything. That being said, let's re-frame the question:

1. Can acupuncture cause a remission of symptoms?

2. Is acupuncture cost effective?

In the first case, yes, acupuncture can, over time, cause remission or significant reduction in symptoms. It's highly unlikely this will happen on a first treatment. However, after a course of therapy, typically 8-10 treatments, patients can experience a significant reduction in symptoms and this reduction can persist for upwards of 12 months in some cases.

Which brings us to the second question about cost effectiveness. Insurance coverage for acupuncture services can be very hit and miss - a lot depends on where a person lives. In the US, Medicare/Medicaid do not typically cover acupuncture services. This puts a lot of folks in the position of paying cash for acupuncture. In the long run, though, this often works out to be cheaper than conventional treatments - especially given that, after a course of therapy, acupuncture's effects can persist for quite some time.

Lastly, if you're thinking about acupuncture to help with some health condition, please make sure you're seeing a provider who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. You want someone who attended and graduated from an accredited school of Chinese medicine and, ideally, is nationally board certified in acupuncture or oriental medicine. If you're not in CA, you can use NCCAOM.org's "Find a Practitioner" lookup to get a list of providers local to you.

From a scientific perspective, acupuncture is doing a couple things for anxiety.

1. Acupuncture treatment stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and helps to bring a person out of the "fight or flight" sympathetic side. This allows someone enter in to a more relaxed state.

2. Acupuncture has been shown to interact with the GABA system in the brain. This is the same system that anti-anxiety drugs like xanax or valium are interacting with. The GABA system is a central nervous system inhibitor and it also causes a degree of relaxation which can take the edge off for anxiety patients.

For the best results, you need to make sure you're seeing someone who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. You want a provider who attended and graduated from an accredited school of Chinese medicine and, ideally, is nationally board certified in acupuncture or oriental medicine. If you're not in CA, you can use the 'Find a Practitioner' look up at NCCAOM.org to get a list of people local to you.

Well, hopefully, you'll feel some reduction in the symptoms that brought you to an acupuncturist in the first place.

Occasionally, a person will feel fatigued or light headed after their first treatment. I usually have folks make sure to eat a small meal or light snack either just before or just after treatment and this helps to alleviate feelings of fatigue.

Otherwise, you shouldn't notice anything different. if you do, and you have any question as to whether your experience is normal, your best bet is to contact your provider and let them know what you're experiencing.

Yes, acupuncture can treat tinnitus. That being said, in my experience, it takes a lot of treatments to affect this particular issue.

Most of the patients I've seen had tinnitus as a secondary complain to some other issue. Usually after 8-10 treatments and several months of maintenance for their initial complaint, they come in and tell me that they've noticed their tinnitus has also improved.

Acupuncture can be amazing for stress management. I work a lot with this particular issue and it responds very well.

Please make sure you're seeing someone licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. Outside of CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get local providers. You can also use Google to look up acupuncturists near you. If you use Google, make sure your provider is an L.Ac./R.Ac. in your state.

There are lots of potential answers to how acupuncture relieves pain. I'll focus on the biochemistry as that tends to be the most understandable explanation.

In pain conditions, the current evidence shows that acupuncture is doing multiple things:

1. Needle insertion promotes the production and release of endogenous opiate peptides. These are basically the body's natural pain killers and function to block transmission of the pain signal.

2. Needle insertion has also been shown to regulate a set of neurotransmitters in the brain and spinal cord which function in the transmission of sensory information including pain signals.

3. We have a small handful of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) studies that show acupuncture is re-mapping areas of the frontal cortex where pain information is processed and increasing the number of opiate receptors in the brain (making more potential attachment points for the increased endogenous opiate peptides).

4. Last, but not least, we have a variety of studies showing acupuncture regulating the inflammatory process via a variety of pathways including cytokines, interleukins and prostaglandins.

So, essentially, we're changing the way pain signals move through the central nervous system, changing the way the brain processes pain signals and helping to reduce inflammation.

On the healing side of the equation acupuncture has been shown to:

1. Generate and mobilize stem cells.

2. Stimulate a relatively undifferentiated healing response as a result of the low level damage the needle itself creates.

Generally, yes, acupuncture can help skin conditions. It sometimes matters exactly what kind of skin issue a patient might have.

I usually get good results for issues like acne or itchy rash. For things like eczema or psoriasis, it often takes more treatments or herbal medicine to bring things under control.

For the best results, and especially if you're considering herbal medicine too, it's important that you see a provider who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. If you aren't in CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get a list of local providers.

A lot depends on what you mean by "anti-aging".

There are providers who focus on things like cosmetic or facial acupuncture. These folks are very good at helping with skin elasticity and reducing or eliminating lines and wrinkles.

Acupuncture can be an excellent choice for managing the various joint aches and pains which sometimes accompany the aging process.

In general though, Chinese medicine focuses more on helping a person harmonize with their current life stage rather than trying to turn the clock back.

There are a few areas of Chinese medicine I don't work in or practice and cosmetic acupuncture is one of them. I did a quick search to see if there was any evidence beyond anecdote for how long the effects of cosmetic acupuncture might last and there doesn't appear to be much information.

Since I don't practice cosmetic acupuncture and there doesn't appear to be a lot of independent information available, I'll have to answer a little more generically.

Acupuncture treatment is rarely a "one and done" type of treatment. Usually there is a course of therapy followed either by a remission of symptoms or some sort of maintenance period.

A typical course of therapy, for just about any condition, is in the 8-10 treatment range. After this, a maintenance interval might range from once a month to quarterly to twice a year or less. Maintenance intervals tend to be very dependent on the individual case and are thus are very hard to predict in advance.

How long will a single treatment last? I don't know. How long will the effects last after a course of therapy (8-10 treatments)? Should be 4-6 weeks on the low end and could be as much as 12 months on the high end.

Yes, acupuncture can work for shoulder pain. It's one of the things I treat routinely.