Acupuncture eases pain

Janine Ottley's first visit to an acupuncturist was an act of desperation. She was on a cruise to Mexico when a killer headache struck, threatening to destroy her vacation. She figured it was worth a try.

"I got off the table and didn't have a headache any more," she says. "It didn't seem possible."

These days, regular visits are part of her survival strategy. Long plagued by headaches, pain, infections and fibromyalgia, she was a veteran of the search for relief — "I went to I can't even count how many doctors, specialists."

Home after the cruise, she embarked on a different search. She began researching acupuncture and then went looking for someone who had trained at a four-year accredited acupuncture school.

The Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine accredit 50 such schools in the United States. Those schools train thousands of students each year — 49 of them currently practice in Utah, where they had to take both a state and national test in order to become licensed by the state so they can practice here.

At least 8.2 million Americans have tried the traditional Chinese medical techniques of acupuncture, according to national surveys. The USA Commission for Alternative and Complementary Medicines says that 158 million American adults use complementary medicines; acupuncture is a not insignificant piece of that.

Acupuncture is based on yin and yang and the need for balance in all things. Yin represents that which is cold, slow, passive. Yang is hot, excited, active. You need both. Acupuncture is based on belief that disease occurs when yin and yang become imbalanced, blocking energy flow or qi that is key to an individual's spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health. The acupuncturist unblocks the qi (or chi) by inserting needles at particular points on the body. Traditional Chinese medicine has identified about 2,000 acupuncture points where needles can be inserted for specific effects, according to the National Institutes of Health.

It's somewhat controversial in a country dominated by traditional Western medicine. Some physicians call it quackery, while others are themselves trained in acupuncture. While some insurance companies are beginning to cover it, others call it investigational — "a long investigation," quips one patient, given it's been practiced in China for between 2,000 and 4,000 years. Practitioners include a growing number of mainstream physicians, who see value in the blending of Eastern and Western medicine — "complementary, not alternative," one told the Deseret News.