Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine

The name of this article comes from a book by William James called “The Varieties of Religious Experience” published in 1902. This book holds a special place in my heart because I had to do a big paper on it in college and William James seems to have followed me around since as his name, and this book in particular, seems to pop up for me on a fairly routine basis. Most have never heard of William James or this book, unless they were a Psychology or a Religion major in college like myself. (Though anyone living in Syracuse knows of James St, which is named after Williams’ grandfather who was instrumental in the founding of Syracuse.) The premise of the book is basically that religion and religious experiences should be judged and valued on their own merits, which is an idea that I think should be applied to acupuncture.

In James’ work he discusses how religious experiences are discounted as being because the person having the experience is later shown to have some mental illness. As an example he cites the Quaker religion and it’s founder, George Fox, who was thought to be schizophrenic and thereby negating the legitimacy of the religion he founded. In other words James states that the value of something should be judged on its own merits and not by its origin. In fact, he termed this type of rejection “medical materialism”.

I think this notion is quite important as we attempt to evaluate acupuncture in our modern world. For years people immediately discounted acupuncture because of its origins in an ancient time from a foreign culture. Some erroneously think it is about magic and superstition (it’s not, in fact it was a reaction to earlier superstition/magical notions of health in ancient China) or fail to see how an ancient culture could obtain any useful knowledge of the body if they didn’t have the technology we do today. In some cases I also think it is flat out ethnocentrism. Other times people just dismiss the effects of acupuncture as being a placebo, a trick of the mind from those susceptible to suggestion.

It is important to point out that there is plenty of scientific evidence supporting acupuncture, its theories, and even the existence of the acupuncture points. However, the average person is not spending any time reading through medical journals and if they were do not have the medical education to understand the technical aspects of the research and studies being done. Therefore we are just left with people’s preconceived notions outlined above.

To apply James’ point of view of the situation we must ignore the origin of acupuncture and go beyond only a surface understanding of it. To properly judge acupuncture we have to look at the experience of acupuncture itself. What does this mean? Quite simply, regardless of how we want to try to scientifically explain or discount acupuncture, does it work? When someone receives treatment do they have noticeable, and sometimes measurable, results? The answer is a resounding yes. Certainly nothing is 100% effective for 100% of complaints 100% of the time. Yet acupuncture has a tremendous rate of effect and millions of people around the world have experienced this. Perhaps your friends or family have benefited from acupuncture, or your coworker in the cubical or office next to you.

We can attempt all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain or discount these experiences but to William James’ it is all pointless. The end all be all of the question is does it work or not and that is the only way to evaluate something like acupuncture. I will actually take this a step further because in medicine it is not all about results because safety is also an important issue. You can effectively cure tennis elbow by amputating someone’s arm, it would be 100% effective, but we all know that is not smart. Luckily with acupuncture it is also extremely safe, much more so than most other medical treatments (and even safer than some of the diagnostic tools used in modern medicine).

Most of the US has woken up to the fact that we need real alternatives to our medical system that has become dominated by pharmaceuticals and surgery and the money that those two things bring to bear on the system. I would love to see more research being done on the science behind acupuncture and its effect, but at the end of the day it is unimportant. I know acupuncture works because I get to see it in action on a daily basis. I am also much more familiar with the research and science behind it than the average person, so no doubt remains in my mind as to the value of acupuncture. However, it is important that more people learn a lesson from William James on how to make better judgments for ourselves and stop letting “Big Pharma” make those decisions for us because our country is in dire need of change with our medical system. The best way to judge is also to experience for yourself, so if you have any health concerns do yourself a favor and find an acupuncturist near you.

Choosing an acupuncturist can be a difficult decision. Many people do not know enough about it to understand what they should look for. In the Syracuse area there are several acupuncturists, but who should you choose and why?  The best way to make your choice is to find out as much as you can about your acupuncturist and his/her treatment philosophy.  If someone you know and trust recommended that acupuncturist it is always a good start. If you did not get a word of mouth referral the next best thing is to call a few acupuncturists. You will spend a fair amount of time with your acupuncturist, if they do not communicate well over the phone then they probably won’t communicate well in person either.

Education, in my opinion, is an important part of the acupuncture treatment.  A good acupuncturist does more than just stick needles in you and then sends you home. They will talk to you about your health issues and educate you about it so that you can make good choices everyday to help promote your overall wellness. Many people assume that the only good acupuncturists are Chinese. Their training is not necessarily superior and if you can not communicate with them well how successful will they be at helping your achieve your goals?

Value is also an important part of the decision making process.  Notice I did not say cost, since value and cost are two different issues. This can sometimes be hard to compare unless you go to see more than one acupuncturist. If you have been to an acupuncturist and did not feel like you got value from it then I recommend calling a few others and comparing how they differ. If you have insurance coverage it is also a good idea to verify that an acupuncturist will take your insurance before scheduling your first appointment.

Personality can be a big factor in choosing your acupuncturist. As I mentioned above you will spend a fair amount of time with your acupuncturist so it is important that it is someone you can trust and get along with.

Unfortunately people sometimes have bad experiences with acupuncturists. I’ve heard several disappointing stories from patients who had been to other acupuncturists in the area. It is important that acupuncture is judged on its own merits and not judged because of a bad practitioner. If you had a bad experience at a dentist would you give up on dentistry and oral hygiene completely or find a different dentist? If you are one of the unlucky few people who had a bad experience elsewhere and want to still give acupuncture a try please call me and we can discuss your concerns.

I hope you have found the information on this page and the rest of my site informative. If you think you are ready to take the next step please give me a call at (315) 569-6579 so we can discuss your health goals and answer any other questions you may have.

This summer, physicists (tentatively) discovered the existence of the Higgs Boson. Sometimes referred to as “the God particle” (more on that terminology later) this particle lays the foundation for how matter was created during the Big Bang. Though this concept was formulated by 6 different physicists (including a fellow University of Rochester alum, Carl Hagen) over a half century ago it has taken time to develop the technology to detect these particles. This discovery provides the foundation upon which our understanding of the universe is based.

So what is the Higgs Boson all about? I’m not a physicist or mathematician by any stretch of the imagination, the only numbers I use on a daily basis are for accounting or for the numbering system used for naming acupuncture points but I will take a stab at explaining the concept according to my understanding of it. It has generally been accepted that the universe started at the so called Big Bang where an infinitely small point contained all of the matter of the universe which then rapidly expanded and became the universe as we know it. One of the issues physics has had to deal with is explaining how that mass was created. Enter the Higgs boson…

In July of 2012 researchers at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland observed a boson that is consistent with the previously hypothetical Higgs Boson, though it has not been conclusively identified. If this particle does exist then it would prove the existence of the Higgs field. The Higgs field permeates the whole universe and is the vacuum from which all else came. The Higgs boson is how energy in the Higgs field “condenses” into mass creating particles and therefore the matter that we are more familiar with. This particle started being referred to in the media as “The God Particle” after a title of a 1993 book by Leon Lederman. Many physicists are not fans of this name as there is nothing religious or mystical about the particle.

What does all of this fancy physics stuff mean to an ancient healing tradition like Chinese medicine? First of all it explains the universe, in modern terms, in much the same way it is described in ancient Chinese thought and it also gives us some insight into the “energy” (or “qi”) that is a central concept of Chinese medicine.

Every culture has their own creation myths. In the Judeo-Christian traditions it is the story of Genesis, God creates the world in six days, takes a day off on the seventh. In Taoism, a philosophy from ancient China which greatly influenced the development of acupuncture, the universe does not have a Creator in the same sense. The origin story of the universe comes from the Taoist text the Tao Te Jing (Dao De Ching) written by Lao Tzu around 300 BC. In it he says, (and I paraphrase), “From the one comes the two, from the two the three, and from the three the ten thousand myriad things”. I know, that’s kind of cryptic, so lets break that down.

The one refers to the Void (the Tao, represented by the Wuji symbol which is an empty circle). This is an undifferentiated whole. From this comes the two, or Yin and Yang (symbolized by the Taiji or Great Ultimate – the black and white symbol found in my logo). From the two comes the Three – Yin and Yang interact to create Qi or energy (it would probably be better understood as from the two comes the third). From the three comes the ten thousand myriad things, or in other words everything in the universe. Are you still with me?

Admittedly the Taoist explanation is more poetic than scientific, but lets look a little closer. The universe starts off as an undifferentiated “Void” from which everything else comes from. Sounds a lot like the Higgs field. From this we get Yin and Yang which would equate to the charge of particles. This interplay of polarity creates Qi. While commonly translated as energy we could also consider this to be the various forces (gravity and other forces) that holds particles together to create matter (the ten thousand things). So in just a couple of sentences the ancient Taoists may have been describing sophisticated concepts of particle physics.

Now the title of this article is about the Higgs boson validating acupuncture so I think I need to go another step or two further. Chinese medicine and acupuncture rely heavily on the concepts of Taoism so if we can comfortably say that the Taoist cosmology is similar to our Standard Model of physics that is a big step in showing that what we talk about in acupuncture is describing the same things we talk about in physics, and by extension in biomedicine (though some would agree biomedicine is a bit behind modern physics in its understanding of the universe and the human body). The problem is we still have a lot to learn about our bodies before we can translate the ancient terminology into the modern. Many acupuncture skeptics point out that we haven’t proven meridians or qi and therefore the whole system must be false. I contend that we didn’t understand gravity for a long time (and certainly not in the same way we have understood it in the past 100 years) but humans still knew that if you drop something it will fall to the ground. Not knowing about gravity did not make its effects false. In the same way we still have work to do to fully understand the mechanisms of acupuncture but we can see the effects and know that something is indeed going on. To take one more stab at equating the two seemingly different models I will pass along a quote about qi (the “energy” that we manipulate in acupuncture to cause healing). I don’t know the source, so if anyone does please let me know. It goes something like this – “Qi is energy on the verge of becoming substance, and substance on the verge of becoming energy”. This concept is strikingly similar to the idea of the Higgs boson as the intermediary between energy and substance. As we deepen our understanding of the Higgs field and Higgs boson I think we will come to a better understanding of the mystical sounding concept of qi and a better understanding of the human body. Of course, if you ask me acupuncturists already have that understanding, we just need to make ancient terminology work with modern terminology, but to do that the modern terminology still needs to be developed.

Regardless of how we tackle the conceptualization of acupuncture and Chinese medicine with further scientific advancement I hope I have sufficiently shown you that the ideas of Chinese medicine really are not mystical and are in fact very well grounded in a deep understanding of our bodies (and universe) developed through thousands of years of observation. It is important to not get hung up on the words, as they are merely a tool for our understanding. Just like Shakespeare points out “What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet”. No matter how weird Chinese medicine may sound at times we are, in fact, describing the same exact body including it’s many functions and dysfunctions, as modern medicine.

Note – If you liked this article be sure to check out “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Capra. He goes into much more depth about modern physics and looks into other eastern traditions. I checked the index of his book after writing this article and it does not mention Higgs bosons or Higgs field. It has been around 10 years since I last read the book, before I knew anything about Taoism, so any similarities in content are unintentional.

Getting people to try acupuncture can be very difficult. Many people know what it is but know very little about it, so it just seems foreign and strange to them. There are many misconceptions about acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Sometimes this also makes patients afraid to even acknowledge that they receive acupuncture because they’re afraid their friends and family will think they’re weird. Below are some of the more common misconceptions and why they are not correct. So next time you find yourself in a conversation about acupuncture and someone brings any of these up, you’ll know what to say.

“Acupuncture is only good for treating pain”

While it is true that acupuncture is a great option for the treatment of pain from many different causes, it can also help with many other conditions. It works well for digestive disorders, menstrual problems, and infertility just to name a few.

“Acupuncture hurts” or “I’m afraid of needles”

While its true many people are afraid of needles the needles used in acupuncture are much different in design and size than those used in a doctors office. It is mostly painless and certainly does not feel like what many people would expect. For more on this check out my VIDEO

“You need to believe in acupuncture for it to work” or “I don’t believe in it”

Most people think acupuncture only works because of the placebo effect. Oddly enough most people don’t really know what the placebo effect is, and recent research is causing the medical community to rethink their prior opinion on what the placebo effect is. A great demonstration of why belief is not necessary is veterinary acupuncture. Many animals get acupuncture and are noticeably better after treatment. Do dogs believe it will work for them and that’s why they’re better?

Also saying you don’t believe in it is kind of like saying you don’t believe in gravity. Acupuncture works and has demonstrable effects in the body. You may not believe in some of the underlying theories such as qi or vital energy and the energy pathways or meridians, and that’s ok. The terminology used in Chinese medicine can seem a little “out there”. We are talking about the same body, just with different terms and concepts. And honestly, the stripped down version often presented in the media is like describing a cake only by talking about the color of the frosting. There is much more to it.

“Acupuncture is religious” or “It is against my religion”

The practice of acupuncture involves no religious beliefs, plain and simple. During its history it was certainly influenced by the philosophies of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism but it does not conflict with other religious beliefs. It is merely a form of medicine and is no more or less religious than modern “Western” medicine.

“Acupuncture is expensive”

Paying out of pocket for health expenses is a foreign concept for many of us accustomed to only paying a small co-pay for our doctor visits or prescriptions. The truth is that acupuncture is a very cost effective medical therapy. Because of that insurance coverage is becoming more common. Most assume it’s not going to be covered by their insurance but it is always worth calling to find out. And if you don’t have insurance coverage currently, talk to your HR rep or who ever is in charge of purchasing your healthcare and let them know you want acupuncture as a covered service.

“I’ve already seen several doctors/tried several medications/had several procedures. None of them helped me, so how could acupuncture help?”

This usually indicates a bias for Western medicine and the idea that the “more technologically advanced and scientific” form of medicine we are all familiar with is the superior one. I’m not saying it is or it isn’t. In fact there are many times where patients have had no luck with Western medicine, maybe not even being able to get a diagnosis for their issues from their doctor, but still have fantastic results with acupuncture.

“I tried it once and it didn’t work”

The key word here is once. One acupuncture treatment is not enough to judge its effectiveness. Many people will notice a change in their symptoms after their first treatment and the results may only last for a day or two at first. With continued treatment the results get better and last longer. To try one acupuncture treatment and say it doesn’t work is like taking one dose of a medication and expecting it to suddenly change everything.

“There is no proof that it works”

I’ve got 2,000 plus years and millions of people as proof it works. When someone makes a statement like this they are usually trying to say there are no double-blinded, randomized control trials showing effectiveness for acupuncture (there are also no double-blinded, randomized control trials demonstrating the effectiveness of parachutes at reducing injury or death in high altitude falls, but if I ever have to bail out of a plane at 30,000 feet I don’t think I’m going to be skipping on the parachute). 10-15 years ago there were not a lot of studies done that indicated acupuncture was effective (mostly due to poor study design). A lot of research has been done in recent years showing that acupuncture works well for a variety of conditions. We still don’t understand all of the various mechanisms by which it works, but we’ve come a long way.

“I’m healthy/nothing is wrong with me, I don’t need acupuncture”

This is probably one of the more common reasons people don’t use acupuncture. This even applies to patients who have received care and resolved their issues. Just like our cars need regular maintenance even though it may be running just fine, so do our bodies need the occasional “tune-up”. Acupuncture is a great way to stay healthy and is very preventative in nature. It doesn’t require a lot of treatments to have this benefit, one a month or so is often sufficient.