The BLOG: Lifestyle

Demystifying the art and healing power of acupuncture

(Photo courtesy of Brendan Carney)

(Photo courtesy of Brendan Carney)

Imagine lying in a warm dimly light room surround by tranquil music, soft high-thread Egyptian cotton sheets and thinner-than-head-hair-like needles piercing skin all over your body. Sound relaxing? Maybe, maybe not.

Even as few as 10 years ago, acupuncture was considered a fringe alternative medicine. As an acupuncturist, when I told people what I do the answer is always the same, “Oh that’s really interesting.” It used to be people would tell me how they knew someone who loved acupuncture and more often than not now it’s someone telling me they’ve had acupuncture treatments.

Either way, the scope of this ancient medicine is changing. To my knowledge every major hospital in the Boston area has at least one staff acupuncturist. It is becoming more and more integrated. Acupuncture has a growing body of double-blinded randomized controlled trial evidence based medicine supporting this modality.

When people come into my office I generally try to demystify this art. I don’t care about talking to you about your relationship with your mother and how your liver qi is stuck and fighting with the spleen — huh? I care about your postural habits, muscular dysfunction, and other elements in your life that are negatively impacting your body’s ability to function. It’s physical; not some esoteric folk medicine.

Balancing yin and yang? Aligning your qi? It’s as simple as trying to restore your body’s system — whether that is your fight or flight (nervous system) overacting or your physical body holding stress in poor postural alignment.

I started studying acupuncture when I was in my 20s and met one of these strange practitioners on the street. I remember thinking, “That’d be pretty cool.” This path lead me to study yoga, Tai Chi, Taoism, Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. What’s funny to me is that I ended up teaching acupuncture to physicians at Harvard Medical School, working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for five years and ultimately working in the very physical world. Our physical bodies help inform our emotional and spiritual selves, but many people are not ready for this transformation and are ultimately looking to solve lower back pain, neck pain, headaches, TMJ, etc.

The biggest hole that acupuncture successfully fills in my mind is muscular dysfunction. Who do you see when you have a muscular problems? An orthopedist who specializing in surgery? A physiatrist for an injection? A pain doc for meds? A PT? A massage therapist? A chiropractor? All of these are valid choices and all of them have benefits, but what if they all fail? Perhaps you should seek out a quiet, warm room with tiny, thin needles.

Brendan Carney is a licensed acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist at Central Path Acupuncture & Wellness.