Recently, a very familiar customer returned to the clinic to consult and receive medication. As this customer’s residence is a specific distance from our clinic, and she is generally busy with work, she frequently delays the condition, and only visits when her body is intolerable. To alleviate her discomfort, I would ask her every time she came to the clinic if she was willing to combine with acupuncture treatment, and every time she would refuse. At first, I thought she would refuse the treatment because she did not understand acupuncture, so I explained to her the situation that would occur during the first acupuncture, and seeing that she refused every time, I began to realise that maybe her problem was not a lack of knowledge. I asked her again in the consultation room this time about her readiness to cooperate with acupuncture therapy, but she still refused.
Curious, I asked as to why she was opposed to acupuncture. “Because I heard that acupuncture can make the body reliant, especially for chronic disorders that require long-term acupuncture to improve,” she said, a bit embarrassed. She didn’t forget to apologise to me after that, indicating that she had no other ideas and knew it would be better to combine with acupuncture, but she didn’t want her body to grow reliant on acupuncture. Since this was the first time I heard this term, I inquired as to what kind of acupuncture reliance she meant. What is the physical manifestation of the body’s reliance on acupuncture? She noticed that I was not offended by what she had just said, so she clarified it delicately. It turned out that her family’s elders had frozen shoulders and were introduced to a Chinese medicine practitioner to do acupuncture treatment, andat first the condition improved, but after going several times, they began to feel that if they did not go to acupuncture, their condition would not improve, plus they needed to go 1-2times a week, so they thought that acupuncture would make the body reliant, and gradually resisted acupuncture. After hearing her explanation, I realized that they had a wrong idea of acupuncture and that their claim that acupuncture will be addictive was incorrect. In order to clear up this misunderstanding, I spent the time to clarify “Chinese medicine acupuncture” to her.
[What is acupuncture?]
Acupuncture is an external therapy method of Chinese medicinethat is widely known and used. External treatment of traditional Chinese medicine refers to methods of not using oral medicinal treatment, usually on the body surface or outside the body, and includes acupuncture, guasha, tuina, and cupping. Acupuncture is a term that encompasses both acupuncture and moxibustion. Acupuncture is the insertion of acupuncture needles into the human body’s acupuncture sites, whereas moxibustion is a therapy approach that uses mugwort to administer heat to the human body’s acupuncture points.
[The role of acupuncture]
Acupuncture’s primary function is to assist the body in dredging channels and collaterals. The meridians are like pipes in the body, uniting the internal organs and diverse tissues of the human body into one,and are primarily responsible for regulating qi, blood, and human body functions.Keeping the meridians clear can therefore maintain the proper flow of qi and blood throughout the body. When the human body’s meridians get blocked, it affects the circulation of qi and blood in the body, similar to a stopped water pipe, causing the water flow to become smaller, leading the body to generate numerous discomforts, the most prevalent of which are pain, numbness, and other manifestations. When this occurs, acupuncture therapy is required, in which acupuncture needles are put into the acupuncture sites of the human body to dredge the clogged meridians and allow qi and blood to circulate.
[Does acupuncture cause addiction?]
Acupuncture treatment that is done correctly does not establish reliance on the body. Acupuncture treatment, like any other treatment approach, including tuina, cupping, guasha, and other therapies, will not make the body reliant if done appropriately.
Acupuncture is used to help mobilize the body’s qi in order to adjust the body’s circulation, and the body will become dependent on acupuncture, possibly because the body itself has become lazy and is unable to regulate the circulation in the body, so external treatment is required to maintain smooth circulation, resulting in the body becoming dependent on acupuncture.
In general, the body will not become reliant on acupuncture therapy after one or two months, but acupuncture 1or2times per week for 3months or more than half a year will cause the body to become dependent on acupuncture. To avoid the phenomena of the body’s relianceon acupuncture, you should not seek acupuncture treatment blindly, but ratherverify that there is a problem with the body under the opinion of a professional practitioner, and acupuncture therapy is carried out only when necessary.
In fact, the number and frequency of acupuncture treatments rely not only on the professional practitioners’ assessment of the situation, but also on the patient’s physical constitution, the disease’s severity (acute vs. chronic), and how long the patient has had the sickness. As a result of the body’s inability to effectively fight off the sickness and obstruct the meridians that carry energy to the internal organs, illness develops and manifests as a variety of symptoms. The goal of treatment, whether it comes from traditional Chinese medicine or Western medicine, is to reverse the damage that the disease has done to the body through prescription medications or other means so that the body can recover its normal functions and fight the disease until it reaches a healthy state. In other words, any treatment is only a means of helping the body fight the disease; the ability of the body to regain health depends on its own repair ability. Some diseases are acute, with a short duration and a rapid onset, but if the patient has a strong physical constitutionand sufficient zheng qi (the body’s ability to resist diseases), the disease does not significantly impair the bodyor the roots of the body and recovery from it happens quickly ; On the other hand, some chronic diseases are more difficult to diagnose, take longer to emerge in the body, commonly cause by long-term harm, and might not just be an issue in and of themselves. Because the body must constantly repair the damage while battling the sickness in patients with weak bodies and insufficient zheng qi to resist the disease, such chronic illnesses must also bemore detrimental to the body. As a result,recovery takes time, as does the treatment process.
[Afterword]
As long as the patient cooperates and refrains from seeking treatment blindly, there is no need to worry about reliance or addiction concerns as the body does not grow reliant on acupuncture as a form of treatment. Patients must modify any unhealthy behaviours that are harmful to their health in addition to receiving therapy, particularly their eating and living habits, so that the body can naturally achieve the balance of qi and blood (yin and yang), and sickness can cure as rapidly as possible.
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