At Community Acupuncture, they let you sit in the treatment room for as long as you need to; you decide when your treatment is done. I suspect it must feel empowering for the patients to feel like they have some degree of control over the treatments, to be able to say when they feel they’re ready. Chris came and removed the needles after about 30 minutes.
I wish I could say I felt a difference after my treatment, but in truth I had not come in to be treated for anything. I just wanted the experience, and I got just that. My acupuncturist gave me a great overview of what acupuncture is, and what Community Acupuncture in particular can offer.
Some conditions lend themselves well to treatment with acupuncture. While acupuncture makes no claims about correcting a structural problem (it will not reverse your knee osteoarthritis), it might help with functional problems. Things like pain, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms, even allergy symptoms.
I am aware of studies that show that there is no difference between sham acupuncture and real acupuncture. But what of it? A placebo effect, after all, is still a therapeutic effect. This makes me think that there must be more to acupuncture than just the application of needles in the right places. Maybe it is the environment of the acupuncturist’s office. Maybe it is the aura of mystery that Eastern medicine inherently possesses, or the fact of being physically touched by the provider. These are intangibles that I think can make a difference. As Chris put it, "we’re all here to treat people, make them better somehow." That’s a nice ideal for physicians to strive for, don’t you think?
Dr. Chan is a rheumatologist in private practice in Pawtucket, R.I. Readers can write to her at rhnews@elsevier.com.