Skillful location, insertion and manipulation of the needles achieve the desired effect. This is somewhat like knowing which switch in your home turns on which appliance.

Acupuncture should not be painful. It is important, however, that you feel the sensation of Qi, called ‘de Qi’. You may feel the arrival of Qi as a slight cramping, a dull achy feeling, a feeling like electricity, a tingling, or sensation of heat or cold. None of these sensations should be very uncomfortable. Occasionally, you may feel as if you’ve been stung by a bee. This should pass very quickly. If it does not, tell your practitioner so he can adjust or remove the needle.

The list of conditions which acupuncture can treat successfully is extensive. Certainly, Acupuncture is most effective for all kinds of pain. It is well suited for the treatment of acute pain such as sports injuries, pulled muscles and tendons, or twisted backs and ankles. Acupuncture is also very effective for chronic pain such as arthritis, Fibromyalgia, repetitive strain injury, or chronic back ache.

Acupuncture is very good for treating stomach & bowel disorders, ear, nose & throat disorders, asthma & breathlessness, paralysis, frozen shoulder, Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, and other such disorders.

Acupuncture is also most effective in treating addictions, phobias, anxiety and other such psychological problems. Acupuncture is also very useful for any kind of ‘wellness’ program. Stimulation of specific points to tone all the primary organ systems as well as the body as a whole. It is said, ‘needle Stomach 36 and live to be a hundred.’

There are 5 main components to Traditional Chinese Medicine; Acupuncture & Moxibustion being one. The others are Herbal Medicine, Tuina Massage, diet and nutrition, and finally such esoteric practices as Feng Shui, Qi Gong and I Ching. Each of these branches is a full blown practice in its own right.

Acupuncture points have been shown through modern scientific methods to be areas that vibrate at slightly higher frequency than the surrounding tissue. Furthermore, any kind of energetic stimulation will activate a given point and promote the flow of Qi in a specific channel. While needles have been developed as probably the most elegant method for stimulating Qi, applying pressure with the thumb or forefinger, lasers, directed sound vibration, or any kind of vibration has been shown to activate acupuncture points.

Knowing this, then, knowledge of acupuncture points and how Qi flows in the body may be useful to anyone who does healing at the energetic level, including those doing any kind of massage, therapeutic touch, Reiki, or any kind of similar therapy. In Reiki, Dr. Usui is said to have been able to activate the flow of healing Qi simply by blowing on a point or staring at it.

Acupuncture as it is practiced today is a safe, comfortable and cost effective treatment for many of the problems that commonly develop in pregnancy. This is especially true since pharmaceuticals are contraindicated in pregnant women in most cases.

That being said, it is important that the acupuncture with a well trained practitioner because there are some acupuncture point that are traditionally forbidden to do during the nine months of gestation. These points are the ones that are known to strongly move Qi (energy) and blood through the pelvis include obvious points like those on the lower abdomen, and also the famous points we use to treat gynecological disorders: LI4 and SP6

In fact these two points when strongly stimulated have been used to induce abortion. I have read that they were frequently used in Maoist China when the one child per family edict was strictly enforced. Acupuncture, of course, when properly applied can help to prevent, not cause miscarriages.

Acupuncture treatment is recommended once a month to ensure the optimal health of the mother and the developing fetus at different stages of growth and differentiation. Tradition has it that Zhubin (K9), the “beautiful baby point”, should be needled at the end of the third and sixth months to ensure a happy, healthy, and of course, gorgeous baby. The Chinese name for the point means “guest house”. The Zhubin point, located just below the calf muscle and above the inner ankle bone, is known to calm the mind, relieve anxiety and helps to build blood. It is claimed that “stimulating this point minimizes the transmission of toxins from the mother to the child, increases the health of the baby and its resistance to disease and also tonifies the mother’s Qi.”

In preparation for labor and delivery during in the last month of the pregnancy the expectant mom should be seen weekly. While the focus of this article is to address the treatment of conditions that arise as a direct result of the pregnancy, acupuncture can be used to treat conditions that antedate the pregnancy, such as migraine headache or allergies. In most cases acupuncture is a safer approach than the use of prescription medications.

The first section of the Nei Ching Su Wen involves a talk between the Yellow Emperor, Huang Ti, and his Minister, Ch’i Pai. This discussion lays down the philosophical origin of traditional Chinese medicine, and makes the Nei Ching Su Wen more of a dissertation on health and disease rather than a textbook of medicine. Early Greek texts on medicine are mainly of interest to the medical historian to a certain extent than the practicing physician. In this case for example, Hippocrates does make many outstanding philosophical and sensible comments about disease and the doctor-patient relationship, but for the most part these texts are recipe books for an assortment of ill-defined diseases. The Nei Ching Su Wen is undying and deals almost wholly with philosophical concepts, many of which seem to be as imperative today as they were 2,000 years ago.

One of the greatest living experts on Chinese scientific philosophy, Professor Joseph Needham, describes some aspects of the early Chinese system of science as mediaeval and retrogressive. He feels that many of these concepts have unclear explanations that develop the obvious potential of Chinese medicine. There is unquestionably an element of truth in this but there is still a great deal of practical and priceless information within the conventional Chinese approach to medicine.

The Western doctor observes the truth first and uses the present physiological theories to explain them. Chinese medicine is based on a much wider world view, which is described in the Nei Ching Su Wen, and these ideas are woven into an absolute and unbroken system based on a philosophy dissimilar from that of modern Western medicine. The concepts of Yin and Yang, and the number five, are two of the more significant ideas that pervade much of traditional Chinese scientific thought.

Yin and Yang are contradictory aspects of the material world. Like night and day they are mutually dependent, and the subsistence of one end of the range presupposes the continuation of the other aspect; i.e. Yin is needed for Yang to exist, and vice versa. At first the idea of Yin and Yang seems very basic; it is not, it describes the primary fluctuating balance of nature. A contemporary idea that pre-supposes the existence of Yin and Yang is ecology, one of the main values of which is that the forces of the environment must be in a fluctuating balance.