OT: Acupuncture- Considering doing it as a career- opinions wanted

I'm curious what everyone thinks about acupuncture as a practice in general? I ask because I'm considering going to school to do it, but I won't be able to if I have any doubts about whether it works or not. I don't want to feel like a fraud. If you'd post your thought, opinions, or experiences here I'd appreciate it. As long as it has some merit I can pursue it, but of course everyone who works in acupuncture is going to support it.

Paradox wrote:I'm curious what everyone thinks about acupuncture as a practice in general? I ask because I'm considering going to school to do it, but I won't be able to if I have any doubts about whether it works or not. I don't want to feel like a fraud. If you'd post your thought, opinions, or experiences here I'd appreciate it. As long as it has some merit I can pursue it, but of course everyone who works in acupuncture is going to support it.

I believe in acupuncture as a great tool, but the schooling I believe is 4 years and fairly intense.

zanza wrote:

Paradox wrote:I'm curious what everyone thinks about acupuncture as a practice in general? I ask because I'm considering going to school to do it, but I won't be able to if I have any doubts about whether it works or not. I don't want to feel like a fraud. If you'd post your thought, opinions, or experiences here I'd appreciate it. As long as it has some merit I can pursue it, but of course everyone who works in acupuncture is going to support it.

I believe in acupuncture as a great tool, but the schooling I believe is 4 years and fairly intense.

Yes, It's a 4 year Masters program and you're right, it is intense. Some of the semesters are 19 units. I'm probably going to go for it. It is supposed to be one of the best schools in the country. Thanks for your fedback.

Paradox wrote:I'm curious what everyone thinks about acupuncture as a practice in general? I ask because I'm considering going to school to do it, but I won't be able to if I have any doubts about whether it works or not. I don't want to feel like a fraud. If you'd post your thought, opinions, or experiences here I'd appreciate it. As long as it has some merit I can pursue it, but of course everyone who works in acupuncture is going to support it.

I think acupuncture is great and very effective. Whether it works or not? That'd be a YES without a single nanosecond of a doubt.

My own experience: Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) caused by hearing damage from a three-day-festival. The tone was so loud, I could hear it even when people were shouting to eachother (for example in a crowded school canteen). After two months of continious ringing I went to an ENT doctor - whom told me there was nothing that could be done about it ("just live with it"). Four months after my visit to the ENT doctor, I went to see an acupuncturist.

I'm still going to the acupuncturist for treatment (haven't had a treatment for ~5 months now, because I've been too busy to visit him), but after about nine treatments the tone had diminished so greatly, I could only hear it when I needed to focus on sounds with a low volume level or in complete silence. I can say it has really saved my future life (if I would tell you I slept one and a half hour each night, I'm already lying to you! My view on life also changed dramatically, I didn't give a .... about anything anymore... the tinnitus was really killing me).

My aunt her experience: After a motorcycle accident many years ago (it was in her youth - so think of ~20 years ago), something in her shoulder was damaged and she suffered from pains in her shoulder and upper arm almost every day since. When doing activities (cleaning the house, cleaning windows, etc), the pain got so much worse she really had to stop every few minutes.
Now, after about 7 visits to the same acupuncturist I went to, she rarely feels pain in her shoulder and upper arm anymore and it's been like that for 5 years now.

The mother of a friend of mine also has positive experiences with acupuncture - but I don't know about her story.


I'd say: Don't let the pharmaceutical industry fill you with their lies about natural treatments being pure placebo, that people whom have had success with it just had "luck" or that the issues they were seeing an acupuncturist for just disappeared "accidently" and that they're just ripping you off...
Go for it!

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/another_acupuncture_study_misinterpreted.php

It works. Few people are Masters... if you can become one, you can do very well.

Longhairedredhead, Thanks for all that specific detail... It really helps! I don't believe the pharmaceutical industry at all, but controlled studies do carry weight with me. That article that j87x posted (thank you) is referring to a study that I read about on wikipedia as well. It really seems that I can't base my decision on too much scientific evidence, but there is plenty of anecdotal. I'm comfortable with it.

Mastery,

I was told that MDs are doing acupuncture now but they have no formal training. They are basically just sticking needle into people. I think your right about becoming good at it. I didn't realize until yesterday when I went to the campus that there are so many variances of it, and approaches.

Accupuncture is very real and can be very beneficial, there's a section in the book The Body Electric regarding the direct way in which it works upon tiny voltage signals and nerve pathways, also on how interested the military was in it's application for vets after Nam.

Paradox wrote:Longhairedredhead, Thanks for all that specific detail... It really helps! I don't believe the pharmaceutical industry at all, but controlled studies do carry weight with me. That article that j87x posted (thank you) is referring to a study that I read about on wikipedia as well. It really seems that I can't base my decision on too much scientific evidence, but there is plenty of anecdotal. I'm comfortable with it.

You're welcome, Paradox!
About those "controlled studies" which usually conclude that "out of all 731 people participating in the study, no-ones issues changed after acupuncture": don't believe that propaganda. It's the same as a newspaper article I read last year, which was something like: "High-scholars at the University Medical Centre in (somewhere in Holland) warn for alternative medicine, and in specific herbal medicine. Herbs often contain lead, mercury and blah blah which is very dangerous for your health and blah blah and therefore it should be avoided..."
Oh hi there! And what's in vaccins? Yes, indeed. Mercury and a lot of other poisonous stuff. What's in your pills? A shitload of harmful crap, indeed. It's just propaganda to scare people from going to a 'natural healer' (which is often providing a lifetime solution), so they'll instead buy pills and crap for the rest of their lives, because of course, those are "tested harmless in scientific studies" and so the pharmaceutical industry will gain money.

Oh, and don't forget the many issues acupuncture provides a solution (or improvement) for, which can't be cured in "our" medicine!

Longhairedredhead and A>R,

Believe me I don't buy into biased articles or transparent cynicism by special interests. I am confident based on the feedback I have received from multiple people now, and after visiting the college and getting an acupuncture session myself, that I am confident that it works. I know that there are some things that work that we can't fully explain, but they still work- which is the important part. Like others have said: This practice is thousands of years old and obviously has a lot of merit. Bias goes both ways in everything though and wiki does talk about most of the positive studies coming from countries where acupuncture is highly used and done by those who favor it. To be fair I didn't actually read the references that are sited, but because wiki is open to user review and because acupuncture is so popular world-wide, I assumed the wiki entry on acupuncture to be pretty even sided and accurate. To sum up what I am saying, the info on acupuncture and evidence or lack-there-of, isn't very favorable towards acupuncture, but never-the-less I believe it works (for whatever reason) and plan to pursue it.

FWIW my healthy skepticism came from mostly the following quotes (although there is more) from wikipedia (with an open mind) and I will just past the relevant parts below:

from wiki

Qi, yin, yang and meridians have no counterpart in modern studies of chemistry, biology, physics, or human physiology and to date scientists have been unable to find evidence that supports their existence.[2][4]

Support for the existence of qi is often looked for in scientific fields such as bioelectricity[155] but this research is rarely verified and the connection with qi may be spurious.

Controversial studies using nuclear imaging have suggested that tracers may be used to follow meridians and are not related to veins or lymphatic tissues, but the interpretation of these results is unclear. The electrical resistance of acupuncture points and meridians have also been studied, with conflicting results.[4] In general, research on the electrical activity of acupuncture points lacks a standardized methodology and reporting protocols, and is of poor quality.[156]

Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh state that (as the quality of experimental tests of acupuncture have increased over the course of several decades through better blinding, the use of sham needling as a form of placebo control, etc.) the "more that researchers eliminate bias from their trials, the greater the tendency for results to indicate that acupuncture is little more than a placebo."[27] In line with this, a study of clinical trials involving sham and no-treatment control groups found that more recent studies showed no change in treatment effects but an increase in placebo effects.[150] Also, when "placebo needles" (in which the needle retracts into a handle rather than penetrating the skin) were introduced to the study of acupuncture, the majority of studies conducted using these needles concluded the effects of acupuncture were due to placebo.[10]

A 2009 review - regarding acupuncture treatment of migraine - concluded that the specific points chosen to needle does not matter, and no difference was found between needling according to "true" points chosen by traditional acupuncture theory and "sham" acupuncture points unrelated to any theory. The authors suggested four possible explanations for their observed superiority of both "true" and sham acupuncture over conventional treatment, but lack of difference in efficacy between "true" and sham acupuncture:[95]

The complexity and characteristics of acupuncture, sham or real, might maximize placebo effects;
The effects of acupuncture are not specific and needling any point affects the whole body (the first two findings suggesting that point specificity may not matter or the effects of needling specific points are overwhelmed by the nonspecific effects of acupuncture);
The blinding between "true" and "sham" acupuncture might be accurate but can never be adequate when compared to drug treatments, resulting in more patients in the conventional care groups dropping out of the trials or reporting more negative outcomes; and
Specific to "true" and "sham" acupuncture only, the skill level of practitioners might be more relevant regarding true acupuncture as the sham procedures tend to be inflexible.

In this spirit, Charlotte Paterson and Paul Dieppe critique standard randomized controlled trials as inappropriate for measuring the effectiveness of acupuncture, suggesting they might produce falsely negative results. They point out that such trials may include active treatment mechanisms, i.e. sham needling may have an equally active effect to standard needling and may also include other active parts of acupuncture treatment such as ongoing diagnosis over several treatments.[151]

Nevertheless, the fact that "a number of well-designed clinical trials have reported that true acupuncture is superior to usual care, but does not significantly outperform sham acupuncture" has been highlighted to be "at odds with traditional theories regarding acupuncture point specificity."[152]

I will add that true physiology in the body is not based on biochemistry.

This is why the so-called "true" science doesn't get it. They are using the incorrect model to assess
something. Healing is really based on electrical, voltage, quantum mechanics, etc.

CausticSymmetry wrote:I will add that true physiology in the body is not based on biochemistry.

This is why the so-called "true" science doesn't get it. They are using the incorrect model to assess
something. Healing is really based on electrical, voltage, quantum mechanics, etc.

Is this snip from what I posted relevant to the electrical voltage you are speaking of? Keep in mind that I'm just playing devils advocate and trying to make sense of this. In no way does any of it sway me from becoming an acupuncturist or believing that it works. I'm just curious as to what people that are more knowledgeable than myself think about these negative claims. I'm well aware of the limitations of mind and concepts when they are mistaken for absolute truth.

"The electrical resistance of acupuncture points and meridians have also been studied, with conflicting results.[4] In general, research on the electrical activity of acupuncture points lacks a standardized methodology and reporting protocols, and is of poor quality.[156]"

Edit: CS, this reminds me that I've heard you speak of electricity in regard to illness (specifically psychological I think) before. What school of thought or practice does this stem from? Basically where can I read about it to better understand where you are coming from? Is there a specific name for this school of thought?

You're level of understand obviously trumps mine, so you won't be able to pass on this info in a way I'll be able to fully grasp, but if I can search for a particular subject like this at it's source or core, I can do my own reading and maybe catch up to speed a bit. Considering this all fits in with the field of TOM which I'm going into, it is right on track with what I'm going to be learning about in a sense.

how much does it cost though?

http://www.zerohedge.com/search/apachesolr_search/student%20loan

student loan slavery is become one of the biggest in our country.

zanza wrote:how much does it cost though?

http://www.zerohedge.com/search/apachesolr_search/student%20loan

student loan slavery is become one of the biggest in our country.

Zanza,

It is reasonable for what it is as far as I can tell. The average student loan debt for them is like $85,000 for a program that is scheduled to be 3 years and 8 months, but most students finish in about 4 years and some odd months. That is factoring in cost of living expenses though and because I am staying with my parents, I believe my debt will be in the 60's. For a 4 year program of this quality (very good school) and a MA degree I believe that is reasonable.

I realize that student loan debt is insane these days and in an ideal world I wouldn't have any. The conclusion I've come to though is that unless I am content to work as a "worker bee" in some robotic job that suffocates me to death, I am going to have to jump through the hoops of the system and accrue some debt to earn a piece of paper. I am not willing to do that for some degree in business or communications for example, which may or may not secure me a job. I have to factor in the personal satisfaction and integrity that comes with doing something I enjoy, can actually use my intelligence and creativity to help others and live a life-style that is more fitting for me. I will not work for corporate America if I can avoid it, and make someone else rich at the cost of being miserable and undervalued.

In other words I have to consider my options and this is the most rewarding (I think) on all levels for the price involved.

Paradox, I'm in a very similar situation. Trying to go back to school for nutrition and possibly into some alternative healing field from there. It'd be my second degree. Still paying off another 10k from my original loans and I'll be leaving my job to go back so the loans are going to pile up