Ask the Acupuncturist

Question: Can you fix me?

Answer: I love this question! Actually, in the treatment room, this is something we get asked quite often. Something we'd all like to answer with a resounding "YES!" But I think this question begs another, more important question: what does it mean for a problem to be "fixed" or more appropriately, "healed"?

Many people who come to acupuncture are at the end of their proverbial rope. They've tried several medications, procedures and other therapies, and now they arrive at acupuncture hoping for a "cure" at last. The trouble is, for most people, our problems don't completely go away, they simply fade into the background so as not to dominate the quality of our life, or we manage them in much more empowered ways. But does this mean that our problems are not healed? As an acupuncturist, I get to hear lots of great stories of the miracle healing people have experienced from getting acupuncture. But when questioned further, come to find out that the problem isn't necessarily gone, it's just a whole lot better, and so is the rest of their life because of it. I can think of several examples where this is true, even in allopathic medicine. If a person with depression is able to get off their medications and live life to the fullest, but periodically has to deal with those feelings again in times of great stress, is the problem healed? If a person has knee surgery but still feels that old knee pain on cold rainy days, is their knee problem fixed? If a person had tennis elbow and can play all the time, and only occasionally has to rest their elbow again, does that mean they are cured? And, conversely, if a person occasionally experiences these problems, just not at all in the same way they used to, does that mean they are NOT healed? And what about for more life-long issues like MS or rhuematoid arthritis? It's an important question, one that makes us look at healing more as a continuum rather than an absolute: What does it look like for me to be healed of this condition? And then, hopefully, with a little acupuncture, we can get you there.

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