A prickly solution………

November - 2010
  • Are you one of the silent sufferers?
  • Tried everything and yet no benefit
  • Do you suffer from a chronic painful condition?
  • Does migraine regularly send you to bed for days?
  • Do painful periods disable you every month?

Have you considered acupuncture, a treatment which dates from 200 BC in China. Knowledge of this therapy spread along the trade routes to the west. However, it remained pretty low key in the west until 1972, when a reporter accompanying President Nixon on his visit to China underwent emergency appendix operation. He was so impressed with the benefit of acupuncture for post operative pain relief, that on returning to the USA, he wrote extensively about this.

We have moved a long way since then. In the UK, NICE (The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) has looked at the benefits of acupuncture in various conditions and has now formally endorsed acupuncture for low back pain.

There is growing evidence for the benefits of acupuncture in painful conditions such as migraine, neck, back, hip, knee and elbow pain and other painful conditions such as painful periods.

The underlying principle of acupuncture is that any symptom, or illness, is a result of disturbance in the flow of the body’s vital energy, or qi. Acupuncture treatment aims to look at the different components of an individual’s life, ie, physical, mental and emotional, which are contributing to the final presentation. Inserting the acupuncture needles aims to restore this disturbance.

The modern scientific explanations for the mode of action of acupuncture are:

  • neural mechanism, stimulating the body’s intrinsic pain blocking pathways
  • release of chemicals which inhibit, or reduce, the perception of pain, eg endorphins.
  • recent studies in the USA have also suggested that acupuncture stimulates the release of a naturally occurring protein within the body called adenosine, which is known to have anti-inflammatory properties

At Lotus Healthcare, acupuncture is provided by Dr Mayank R Shah who is a medical trained acupuncturist and a member of The British Medical Acupuncture Society.

Acupuncture is only offered following a detailed assessment and consideration of all appropriate  treatment options. We are approved by a number of health insurance providers.

Further information on acupuncture is available on www.lotushealthcare.co.uk

To book an appointment, or to discuss other Lotus Healthcare services, please contact us on 0870 6080083 or info@lotushealthcare.co.uk