Jeff Rippey

How much weight can be lost with acupuncture is a tricky question. I get asked it a lot, and almost no one likes my answer.

Can acupuncture help you lose weight if you have a solid diet and exercise program in place? Yes. Many studies have shown acupuncture helping to regulate hormones related to hunger and feelings of fullness. We also have studies showing acupuncture exerting an effect on blood sugar and insulin. We've used acupuncture for some time to manage cravings in things like alcoholism and smoking cessation; these same points can help manage food cravings as well.

Is acupuncture a replacement for a solid diet and exercise program? In my opinion, no. Studies also tell us that roughly 80% of weight loss happens in the kitchen. If you can't get the diet aspect under control, it largely doesn't matter what else you throw in the mix, you're not going to see the desired weight loss.

The "how much" question is really impossible to answer. Every human is different. Everyone has a different metabolic set point. The "ideal" diet tends to vary from person to person. Factors like age, how long you've had the extra weight, how open you are to making diet changes, what your tolerance is for trying different dietary styles until you find the best fit for you and a large laundry list of other things are all going to affect how much you lose, how quickly you lose it and how well you're able to keep it off.

All that being said, here's the free, unsolicited dietary advice I usually offer folks who ask about acupuncture in weight loss: I've gotten the absolute best results with low carbohydrate, high protein, moderate fat intermittent fasting style diets. Don't count vegetables in your daily carb intake and try to keep that number at or under 100g carbohydrate/day. Get rid of everything processed (flour, sugar, high fructose corn syrup), cut down or eliminate low glycemic index foods and stop eating out for at least 4-6 weeks. No soda, no sports drinks, cut back on alcohol (of you're a drinker). Read labels on everything you're planning to put in your mouth. If there's stuff on there you can't pronounce or don't know what it is, do not eat it. Best to shop the perimeter of the grocery (produce, dairy, meat) and skip the aisles. Try to limit your food intake to an 8 hour window - most folks seem to do best with noon to 8PM. Only water, coffee, tea outside this time. Eventually you'll probably end up with about a meal and a half or a meal and a snack in those 8 hours.

This is what has worked for my wife and I. it's the advice I give to my patients who are looking for weight loss help. For those who buckled down and followed it, they've gotten some really amazing results. Best of luck!

There are a lot of variables that go in to how many sessions any person might need to see results from acupuncture.

In conventional medicine there are only a few different kinds of headache and the treatment for most of them is largely the same - some sort of pain relieving medication.

In Chinese medicine there are dozens of different potential diagnoses for headache - some of which respond faster to treatment than others. Without actually seeing and diagnosing you, it's difficult to predict how many treatments you might need before you notice something different.

I specialize in pain management and I see a lot of headache/migraine patients. My general rule of thumb is: headache patients should be noticing a change in severity and/or frequency by the 3rd or 4th visit (assuming weekly treatment). By the 5th or 6th visit we are usually starting to spread things out so we can find that patient's maintenance interval. Sometimes I hit the nail on the head and after 4 or 5 treatments, the issue resolves.

For the best possible result, please make sure you're seeing someone licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. If you're not in CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get a list of providers local to you.

I don't typically ask my patients to avoid anything prior to an appointment. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything that might have an adverse impact on either diagnosis or treatment.

You may want to give your provider a call, just to make sure.

You can double check with your provider about after-care, but I don't typically tell my patients to avoid any particular actions after receiving treatment.

Occasionally, drowsiness can be an after-effect of receiving acupuncture. Having a light snack or meal after treatment can alleviate this effect.

Yes, in fact, I often have patients who leave my office and go straight to their massage therapist.

i work with a massage therapist and we've noticed that she often gets better results on patients who have seen me first.

Yes, acupuncture can be an excellent treatment choice for vertigo. I've worked with several patients and usually get good results. There are also several well done studies showing acupuncture's effectiveness in vertigo patients.

For the best results, pleas make sure you're seeing a provider who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. To find someone local you can use the "Find a Practitioner" look up at NCCAOM.org.

Typically, no, acupuncture does not hurt the following day. Without knowing what you were being treated for, where the needles were placed, and what kind of provider you visited (chiropractor, physical therapist or acupuncturist) it's hard to provide any useful guidance.

When PTs and chiropractors "dry needle" (which they often refer to as "acupuncture"), there can be residual soreness as they use a much more forceful technique than the average licensed acupuncturist.

My best advice is to call the provider you saw, tell them what you're experiencing and see what kind of feedback they have for you.

If you did happen to see a physical therapist or chiropractor, please be aware that this type of after effect doesn't usually happen when you're treated by a licensed acupuncturist (in other words - someone who graduated from a school of Chinese medicine vs someone whose main training is in something else entirely and took a weekend seminar).

Acupuncture is the insertion, manipulation and removal of very fine, filiform (solid) needles at particular points on the body with the goal of affecting some health condition.

How it helps is a much longer conversation and would require discussing: holograms, fractals, physics, anatomy&physiology, the structure & function of connective tissue, cell biology, systems theory, embryology, and how information is utilized in living organisms.

The bottom line is: there are lots of clinical trials showing a variety of measurable biochemical effects resulting from acupuncture. How the biochemistry is changed and what systems are impacted largely depends on what is being treated and which acupuncture points are stimulated.

It's hard to say exactly how many treatments any given patient might require. Some patients respond faster and some respond slower. Some acupuncturists are better at treating headache/migraine than others. Migraine in particular usually has a lifestyle component (stress, diet) which should be addressed in order to achieve relatively quick, lasting results.

I work a lot with headache and migraine. My usual advice is that patients should be seeing a reduction in severity and/or a reduction in frequency somewhere around 3-5 treatments.

No, not true. Acupuncture has been shown to have effect beyond placebo in a variety of clinical trials. The most comprehensive of these is probably the Vickers et al. pain study recently published in the Journal of Pain. This is a systematic review (a study composed of other studies) with more than 20,000 patients. One of the many conclusions they've drawn is that acupuncture has demonstrable effect beyond placebo.

It's important to remember a couple of things when we start talking about the placebo effect:

1. It's embedded in every potential treatment, both conventional and alternative.
2. We don't know what placebo is or how it works.

The placebo effect is a very interesting area of study in its own right, I highly recommend folks spend some time looking in to this subject.

There are a variety of ways in which we can define acupuncture. I'm going to give you a bare bones description that I think, for most folks, works well.

Acupuncture is the insertion, manipulation and removal of very fine, filiform (solid) needles at particular points on the body with the aim of affecting some health condition.

How it helps is a very complicated question. A complete answer would require us to have a discussion about: holography, fractals, physics, embryology, anatomy and physiology, the structure and composition of connective tissues, cell biology, systems theory, and how living organisms utilize information.

The bottom line is: there are measurable biochemical effects which occur as a result of needle insertion and, often, these biochemical changes depend on the nature of the health condition under treatment and which acupuncture points were stimulated.

Success rates for any kind of intervention, conventional or alternative, are very difficult to pin down. Most of the time, these statistics are generated at a population level and are difficult to extrapolate down to a given individual.

A lot will depend on:

1. What's being treated.
2. How long the patient has been experiencing the issue.
3. The experience of the provider in treating that particular issue.

I specialize in pain management and I work a lot with headache and migraine. My 'success' rate with these issues is hovers between 75% and 80% - assuming one thing:

1. Headaches generally have a lifestyle component - high stress, poor food choices, poor dietary habits (meal skipping), etc. If a patient can make lifestyle changes, generally I can help bring the headaches under control or eliminate them. Where I don't often see good results is when patients want to treat acupuncture like a pill - they only come in when there's an issue and do little to nothing on their own to make positive changes relative to their issue.

Another thing to be aware of is that acupuncture is rarely a 'one and done' type of treatment. Occasionally we hit the nail on the head at the first treatment and the problem goes away. More often we're looking at a series of 3-5 treatments to get things where we want them to be. Again, the lifestyle component can have a huge effect on how many treatments might be required.

Yes, acupuncture can be an excellent treatment choice for sciatica. I work with this condition a lot and almost always get good results for people.

For the best results, make sure you're seeing someone who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. If you're not in CA, go to NCCAOM.org and use their "Find a Practitioner" lookup to get some local providers.

There are a lot of variables that can go in to how long a treatment might last:

1. How severe is the pain?
2. Is the pain chronic or acute? In other words, how long has the patient been experiencing the pain?
3. Are there lifestyle adjustments which may impact the pain?
4. Is there a definite cause for the pain?
5. How good is the acupuncturist at treating pain?

Generally speaking, acupuncture is not a "one and done" type of treatment. Most studies show pain relieving effects kick in, on average, at around 8 treatments. Some people will respond more quickly, some more slowly.

Studies also show that once a patient hits the loading dose 8 treatment number, pain relief can persist for an average of 12 months with little fall off in effect.

I specialize in pain management and my "sweet spot" for most pain conditions is around 4 treatments. After that, we start spacing the treatments out so we can find a maintenance interval that works for a given individual. Every case is different; some will have a 4-6 week maintenance interval and some will have a 4-6 month maintenance interval. Sometimes the stars align, we hit the nail on the head, and the pain resolves.

This is a difficult question to answer. The Chinese diagnostic model accounts for a lot of variables that the conventional medical model doesn't consider.

The location, nature and cause (if known) of the pain can play a role. Also, how long you've been experiencing the pain is a factor.

Most of the really good acupuncture pain management studies show there is a "loading dose" effect. On average, for chronic pain, this number hovers around 8 treatments. Some patients respond more quickly than others, some acupuncturists are better with pain than others.

I specialize in pain management, and my sweet spot for most pain conditions tends to be around 4 or 5 treatments.

For the best results, please make sure you're seeing someone licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. If you're outside CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get a list of local providers. Most of us do some level of pain work, but you'll get the fastest results with someone who specializes in pain management.

Yes, acupuncture can usually help with spinal stenosis. Some studies even show acupuncture reducing the stenosis over time. For the best results, please make sure you're seeing someone licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. If you're outside CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org to get a list of local providers.

Yes, acupuncture can typically help relieve the pain and inflammation associated with the various kinds of arthritis. This is a situation where it's also sometimes very useful to investigate diet and lifestyle as well - something in your environment is causing the inflammation and, in the long run, you'll do much better if you know what it is so you can control your exposure.

Please make sure you're seeing a provider who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. Outside of CA, you can use the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org.

I don't typically give acupuncture patients any specific after-care instructions. You might feel a little lethargic or light-headed after a treatment. If this occurs, having a small meal or light snack just before or just after will usually take care of the issue. Otherwise, you should be able to go about the rest of your day.

For treatments that involve cupping or guasha (scraping), there can sometimes be after-care instructions.

It's always a good idea to check with your provider on the way out to see if there's anything specific they want you to do or want you to avoid.

Good question. Some of the best studies we have around acupuncture are looking at pain management - including headache. Generally we see a couple of things:

1. There is a 'dose-dependency' in play. This means, to a point, more treatments usually give better and longer lasting effects. The average 'loading' dose of acupuncture in these studies is usually around 8 treatments.

2. Once you hit the 'loading' dose, the effects can persist for upwards of 12 months with very little fall off.

That being said, every person is an individual and there's no way to predict how quickly or slowly someone might progress.

For the best possible result, please make sure you're seeing a provider who is licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. If you're not in CA, you can use NCCAOM.org's "Find a Practitioner" look up.

Usually, yes, acupuncture can be a good treatment choice for sinus symptoms - assuming your issue is caused by allergic rhinitis or something similar. If you have a structural issue or polyps, then acupuncture is much less likely to get you the results you're looking for.

I'd suggest starting with either your primary care physician or an ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialist. Have them take a look, get some imaging done and make sure you're not dealing with something serious. If the doctors cannot find a cause or they diagnose you with allergic rhinitis, then acupuncture would be an excellent choice.

If you end up going the acupuncture route, please make sure you're seeing someone licensed as an acupuncturist in your state. If you aren't in CA, you can start with the "Find a Practitioner" lookup at NCCAOM.org.