What is it?
When most people hear the word acupuncture a quick association with traditional chinese medicine often comes to mind. Many instantly think about the qi (chee) flowing through the body and the clinician aiming to balance it out. While this does certainly have some merit it is not the approach of the the neurofunctional acupunture clinician. The key here is that neurofunctional acupuncture focuses on using anatomical landmarks and nerve locations and innervations to improve the function of the body. As a chiropractor this system inherently makes sense as our primary role is to create a nervous system that fires and wires efficiently. It is importnat to understand that each spinal segment has influence somewhere else in the body and in order for optimal function to occur clean and fluid signal pathways must be made available. When this does not happen injuries go up, performance goes down, and inevitably some pain presentation will be the result. The analogy I like to use is a crowded highway. If there is traffic or an accident on the way from destination A to B travel time will never be ideal.
What can I expect?
In order to best address neuro-motor dysfunction (your nervous system signaling is off and weakness of a particular muscle may be the result) we want to address any local dysfunction (lets say a chronic ankle sprain for example), but we also want to make sure that are addressing the nerve root associated with the area in question. In addition, we believe that any treatment protocol could be enhanced ten fold if we can downregulate and overactive sympatethic (fight/flight) response. There are additional insertion points in this scenario that can be leveraged to get an overall greater response. The goal being get the patient the best results in the shortest period of time.
Will it hurt?
While many folks are highly comfortable with acupunture needle insertion we understand that it may not be something that everyone is jumping for joy over. First and foremost it is important to understand that we have many tools in the toolbox that can be used. While we do feel this may be best in some scenarios we believe patients should have multiple choices about how we approach care. With that beign said, the method of insertion we utilize works based off a guide tube. We aim to apply a slight pressure around the guide tube to distract the sensory units of the skin where insertion takes place. The majority of the time patients don't even realize that a needle has been inserted. If there is any discomfort or a dull feeling we simply wait about ten seconds and feelings will usually dissipate. If for some reason the patient does not feel comfortable we can always remove the insertion.
Sam Kavarsky
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