This site has been made to fulfill the requirement

 E-LEARNING subject (ITE 3543) 

in MARA Professional College Indera Mahkota

The objective of writing this blog:

#To introduce to the audience about Acupunture.

#To tell the readers about the background and history of Acupunture.

#To expose to the readers about the uses of Acupunture.

#To explain about how Acupunture works for the body

The processes whereby the acupuncturist arrives at the information on which he bases his diagnosis consists of visual observation (including looking at the tongue), listening and smelling, palpation (including pulse and abdomen) and questioning. The most crucial part of the treatment is to make the correct diagnosis. Palpation of areas of the body, of the meridians, and of the acupoints is useful because it provides clues to the patient's condition including the condition of the meridians and organs.

In contrast to obtaining the Qi, which is felt by the patient, the arrival of Qi is something that the practitioner feels. So even if the patient feels no needle sensation, as long as the practitioner feels it, the treatment will be effective. The arrival of Qi is felt as a pulsation or sensation of warmth in the thumb or fingers of the practitioner. The feeling of the arrival of Qi is similar to what might be felt if you are holding a fishing pole at the moment when a fish starts pulling the fishing line away from you. You feel a sort of grabbing or pulling sensation in your fingers. But if the Qi has not yet arrived, the needle will move freely back and forth as if it were in a piece of tofu, and you will not feel any pull or grabbing sensation in your fingers. (1)

Acupuncture is also a very useful form of preventive care. For example, by employing the palpatory technique of eliciting pressure pain in one's diagnostic protocol one can treat problems before they develop into diseases or syndromes. Both Western and Eastern concepts of disease imply a certain pathology with measurable or definable parameters, e.g., the disease of pneumonia or the syndrome of Lung Qi Deficiency. However, because pressure pain elicited by palpation does not always reflect any obvious known disease or syndrome it can serve as a useful sign that there is an underlying imbalance that, although not revealing any symptoms yet, if treated will prevent the condition from progressing further. Disorder, imbalance or disease can be present in a person for some time before becoming obvious, and Western medicine has yet to reach that point whereby it can identify and treat such disorders at an early stage.

Part of being a good acupuncturist is to be able to see the bigger picture. And many times diseases result from a lack of awareness of the primacy of the needs of one's higher self over the lower self. Many times disease is an indicator helping us to took at an underlying emotion or thought pattern and encouraging us to progress into a more positive or higher intuition of ourselves. Once we recognize this and begin working towards our positive reality the problem begins to resolve itself and real healing takes place. The practitioner acts as a facilitator towards the recognition of the higher self. So this dis-ease in which we find ourselves becomes a real ally in our journey towards our own reality.

The dynamics between the practitioner and the patient, the practitioner's recognition of energetic flows in each body, as well as his or her intention, palpatory and needling skills are ail important factors that determine the success or failure of an acupuncture treatment. There are as many styles of acupuncture treatments as there are practitioners.

It is one's innate healing potential that cures disease. Acupuncture is simply a means to assist the body in activating one's own innate healing potential. We talk about being centered or staying focused from the center of our being. In Oriental thought not being centered is the same as being out of balance, and being centered is the same as being in a state of balance or wellness which is the natural function of the body and goal of acupuncture treatment. Health is not simply a composite of quantifiable entities such as chemical levels in the blood and urine. It is ultimately a state of perfect balance - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

When an acupuncture needle pierces tissue while being manually oscillated, slow-moving acoustic waves are sent into the muscles, triggering calcium flow.

Calcium interacts with white blood cells to produce endorphins that help alleviate symptoms such as pain and nausea.

The effectiveness of acupuncture depends on how accurately the needle hits the acupoints. The acoustic waves generated by acupuncture can travel between six and eight centimeters along the grain of pierced muscle only when the needle is inserted on an acupoint.

If the needle is a centimeter off of the acupoint, it can still be effective, even though the waves generated will travel only three to four centimeters.

Chinese Medicine is based on a functional system comprised of the theories of Yin and Yang, Five Elements, Zang Fu, Meridians, Spirit, Qi, Blood, Body Fluids, Five Emotions, Six Exogenous Pathogenic Factors,etc. The five Zang organs are the lung, heart, spleen, liver and kidney; and the six Fu organs are the large intestine, small intestine, stomach, gallbladder, urinary bladder and triple burner. The acupuncturist characterizes the functional disturbances of the Zang-Fu organs with the help of eight diagnostic criteria, namely: Yin and Yang, Interior and Exterior, Deficiency and Excess, Cold and Heat.

How does acupuncture work? When a needle is inserted into an acupuncture point you will usually feel a sensation of warmth, slight numbness, heaviness or mild achiness at the point of insertion. This is known as obtaining the Qi. According to Chinese medicine Qi is the vital energy which flows through a system of channels called meridians and regulates the bodily functions. All the vital activities of the human body are explained by changes and movement of Qi. The activities of the Zang Fu organs, maintaining the normal temperature and defensive systems of the body all depend on the promoting and stimulating effect of Qi.

The meridians are the transmission lines among the various parts of the body, making the organism a unified whole. The meridians and their tributaries provide Qi and Blood and thus warmth and nourishment for the whole body and also serve as lines of communication among the organs and the body. They adjust the ebb and flow of Qi in the body and help maintain a balance of yin and yang, blood and Qi and defense and construction.

Yin and yang symbol for balance. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, good health is 

believed to be achieved by a balance between yin and yang.

Acupuncture chart from Hua Shou

The examples of needles used

The nine needles used in ancient CHINA had a variety of uses including puncturing, surgical 

incision and massage. These ancient needles are similar in shape to their modern, stainless

steel counterparts. Used for superficial insertion into skin, these needles now vary in thickness 

from 0.12 to 0.40 mm and in length from 13 to 125 mm. The remaining needles are a blunt 

massaging needle and a three-edged needle used for bleeding. Needles also used today 

include the plum blossom needle- shaped like a small, plastic hammer for stimulating blood flow 

and semi permenant ear needles, which can be left for several days. 

Primitive sharp stones and bamboo were later replaced by fish bones, bamboo clips and later various shapes of needles made of metal. Today very fine hair thin needles are used. With advanced technology and precision instruments, these needles are placed at specific points of the body with little or no discomfort. When stones and arrows were the only tools of war, warriors wounded in war found that some diseases that affected them for many years were now gone.

Acupuncture is over 5,000 years old. It was not just practiced in China. The Egyptians talked about vessels that resembled the 12 meridians in 1550 B.C.. in their medical treatises called the Papyrus Ebera. The South African Bantu tribesman scratched parts of their bodies to cure disease.The Arabs cauterized their ears with hot metal probes.The Eskimos used sharp stones for simple acupuncture. Brazilian cannibals shot tiny arrows with blow pipes to diseased parts of their bodies to cure disease.

Acupuncture flourished in China until 1932 when Chang Khi Chek took power in China. He brought western medicine to China and acupuncture was banned in the cities. When Mao Tse Tung took over in 1945 and Chang escaped to the island of Formosa (now Taiwan), the doors to China were closed to the west and acupuncture again was restored as the method of healing in a country devoid of antibiotics and western medical thinking.

Acupuncture first came about during the Chou dynasty (1030BC to 221BC) of Chinese therapy, as a system of therapy that involved using needles on precise points of the body.  The points were derived from the philosophical concepts of humanity and its relationship to the natural environment.  The Warring States period (480BC to 221BC) is particularly important in the development of acupuncture’s history as it incorporated two major philosophical ideologies into mainstream Chinese thought – Confucianism and Daoism.

One main belief of Confucianism is of the sacrosanct completeness of the human body.  The Dao in Daoism literally means the “way” to integrating human beings with the forces of the natural world in a harmonious manner.  This is because the cyclic rhythm of these forces naturally balance and complement each other in order to create an environment that is favourable to life. 

The concepts of Chinese medicine that have been derived from Daoism maintain that it is necessary for the regulation of each person’s essential bodily processes to line up with the need for natural harmony.

Acupuncture, a way of treating internal conditions using an external means, evolved as a vital and needed addition to these beliefs. 

Fundamental to both acupuncture and Chinese philosophy is energy.  This energy flows along pathways near the surface of the skin according to a diurnal cycle, and each pathway of energy corresponds to a particular organ.  Acupuncture points are specific locations on the pathway that may be needled in order to affect the balance of the energy it contains and regulate the function of the corresponding organ.

There have been many studies on acupuncture’s potential health benefits for a wide range of conditions. Summarizing earlier research, the 1997 NIH Consensus Statement on Acupuncture found that, overall, results were hard to interpret because of problems with the size and design of the studies.  In the years since the Consensus Statement was issued, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has funded extensive research to advance scientific understanding of acupuncture. Some recent NCCAM-supported studies have looked at: 

• Whether acupuncture works for specific health conditions such as chronic low-back pain, headache, and osteoarthritis of the knee. 
• How acupuncture might work, such as what happens in the brain during acupuncture treatment 
• Ways to better identify and understand the potential neurological properties of meridians and acupuncture points 
• Methods and instruments for improving the quality of acupuncture research. 

The term “acupuncture” describes a family of procedures involving the stimulation of anatomical points on the body using a variety of techniques. The acupuncture technique that has been most often studied scientifically involves penetrating the skin with thin, solid, metallic needles that are manipulated by the hands or by electrical stimulation. 

Practiced in China and other Asian countries for thousands of years, acupuncture is one of the key components of traditional Chinese medicine. In TCM, the body is seen as a delicate balance of two opposing and inseparable forces: yin and yang. Yin represents the cold, slow, or passive principle, while yang represents the hot,  excited, or active principle. 

According to TCM,   health is achieved by maintaining the body in a “balanced state”; disease is due to an internal imbalance of yin and yang. This imbalance leads to blockage in the flow of qi (vital energy) along pathways known as meridians. Qi can be unblocked, according to TCM, by using acupuncture at certain points on the body that connect with these meridians. 

Sources vary on the number of meridians, with numbers ranging from 14 to 20. One commonly cited source describes meridians as 14 main channels “connecting the body in a weblike interconnecting matrix” of at least 2,000 acupuncture points.

The Acupunture Points

Acupuncture became better known in the United States in 1971, when New York Times reporter James Reston wrote about how doctors in China used needles to ease his pain after surgery. American practices of acupuncture incorporate medical traditions from China, Japan, Korea, and other countries.

• Acupuncture has been practiced in China and other Asian countries for thousands of years. 

• Scientists are studying the efficacy of acupuncture for a wide range of conditions. 

• Relatively few complications have been reported from the use of acupuncture. However, acupuncture can cause potentially serious side effects if not delivered properly by a qualified practitioner.