How often should you get acupuncture, and how long does it take to work?

While acupuncture has great effect through using needles at specific acupuncture points, using needles is not the only way to experience the benefits of these points. Indeed, using moxibustion (burning mugwort near an acupuncture point) or your own fingers for acupressure, are both ways people can DIY the benefit of Chinese medicine at home. Moxibustion is more complex to explain and if you are interested, I recommend asking your acupuncturist about how to use it at home. Thi

Do needles hurt? Are they safe? How big are they? Learn the basics about acupuncture needles in this article.

A common response to the idea of acupuncture is “I don’t like needles”. It’s completely understandable, because most people’s experience with needles is getting shots at the doctor’s office. And those HURT. Those needles are also 10x bigger than acupuncture needles. If acupuncture felt like getting 20 shots, I certainly would not be an acupuncturist today. Luckily, the needles we use are tiny. 0.15 mm diameter tiny. So tiny, that what I hear most in the treatment room is “I d

Let’s start with some history. Chinese doctors created and fine-tuned acupuncture over the past 2,500 years, as they discovered the most effective ways to use needles in the body to treat illness and pain. Dry needling is an needling technique that was popularized in the 1980's and is practiced almost exclusively by practitioners other than acupuncturists, such as medical doctors, physical therapists and chiropractors. Are they the same? Yes and No. Here are some key similar