Acupressure employs firm, sustained fingertip pressure against certain sensitive points in the anatomy. It's based on the principles of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which hold that energy flows through the body along invisible channels. If this energy gets stuck or is otherwise unbalanced, the result is sickness and pain. According to TCM, you can release blocked energy by pressing on certain points that exist along these channels. Most acupressurists are taught to look for other spots, too, ones that are especially tender. Some of these points are trigger points, the hard knots of muscle that cause pain both at their location and in area that radiate out from it.
Western science explains acupressure works so well for pain because it distracts the nervous system. The nerve impulses that carry the message for firm touch travel faster than those that carry pain messages, blocking them out at the spinal cord. Since the pain messages can’t travel up the cord, they never register in your brain. And that “pain gate” at your spinal cord doesn’t just pop back open when the acupressure stops; this therapy appears to have longer-term neurochemical effects that can last well past the time of treatment.
Learn more about acupressureAcupuncture was developed in ancient China according to beliefs about the way energy flows through the body. The Chinese identified and defined a life force, called chi. Chi moves along invisible channels in the body called meridians, and certain points along those meridians are vital for keeping chi flowing properly. Illness or pain is the result of chi that’s blocked at a certain point or that’s moving too quickly or slowly. Acupuncture and acupressure believe in the same theory but acupuncture employs needles instead of fingertips.
American Academy of Medical Acupuncture
4929 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 428
Los Angeles, California 90010
Phone: 323-937-5514
www.medicalacupuncture.org
During treatment, you rest comfortably as a therapist or chiropractor places electrodes on the part of your body that hurts and then sends a mild electrical current through the skin and muscles. You‘ll feel a tingling sensation, which beats the pain sensation to the spinal cord and prevents you from feeling it. The stimulation has an additional effect on tight muscles, pulling them into a painless contraction, which ideally results in the muscle becoming so tired that the contraction finally releases.
Electrical stimulation relieves pain temporarily so that you’re able to perform stretching and strengthening exercises. Without those exercises, you’ll soon be right back where you started. Be wary of a therapist who uses stimulation, slaps on a hot pack, and finishes up with a quick massage, neglecting the exercise. This therapy is good for muscular and joint pain, and especially for arthritis.
TENS works according to the same principles as regular electrical stimulation. A current passes through electrodes attached to the skin; since the spinal cord gives electrical sensations priority over pain messages, the pain messages are stopped. What’s different is that electrical stimulation in a therapist’s office usually lasts about fifteen minutes, and you have to lie still to receive it. In TENS, however, you are provided with a small, portable unit that you can wear throughout the day or night and that lets you conduct the normal business of your life. Not everyone responds to TENS, but those who do swear by it. If you get pain relief from acupuncture or regular electrical stimulation in physical therapy, you’ll probably like TENS, too.
Chino, Allan F. & Davis, Corinne D. Validate Your Pain! Bloomington, IA: AuthorHouse, 2004.
Cochran, Robert T. Understanding Chronic Pain: A Doctor Talks to His Patients. Franklin, TN: Providence Publishing, 2004.
This page was first published on May, 15th, 2008 and was last updated on May, 15th, 2008