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What is Acupuncture?
Acupuncture is an ancient system of medicine originating in China. The earliest records of its use date back as far as five thousand years ago.

According to the ancient Chinese, vital energy (ch'i or qi, pronounced "chee") travels through your body along pathways called meridians. When you are in good health the flow of chi is smooth and uninterrupted, but when illness strikes this flow is disturbed.

An acupuncturist works by stimulating precise points along the meridians to restore your flow of chi and return you to full health. Many people actually describe a tingling sensation along the exact pathway of a meridian, without even knowing it exists.

Five Element acupuncture views pain and illness as signs that the body is out of balance. The overall aim of acupuncture treatment, then, is to restore the body's equilibrium.

What makes this system of medicine so well suited to modern life is that a persons physical, emotional and mental states are seen as interdependent, and reflect our total state of well being.

Five Element acupuncturists are trained to use subtle diagnostic techniques to identify the cause of the energetic imbalance in your body. The focus is on the individual and all the symptoms are seen as distress signals from the body saying "Hey, please help me!". Every patient is unique, therefore two people with the same western medicine diagnosis will typically require different acupuncture treatments.

History of acupuncture
Five Element acupuncture is a tried and tested system of medicine that has been practised for thousands of years in China and the Far East. It has been developed, tested, researched and refined over centuries to give us a complex and detailed understanding of the body's energetic balance.

The first known book of Chinese Medicine, the Classic of Internal Medicine of the Yellow Emperor, dates back to between the first century BC and the first century AD.

Without the help of modern scientific instrumentation, and through simple observation of how nature works inside and outside the human body, ancient Chinese scholars discovered many now familiar aspects of biomedical science, such as the effect of emotional stress on the immune system. Five Element acupuncturists are no less objective or refined than western clinicians in their understanding of how the body functions, although to this day they use terminology that reflects Chinese medicine's cultural and historic origins.

Acupuncture was brought to the west in the twentieth century by doctors visiting China. They were amazed to see operations performed on fully conscious patients using acupuncture as an anesthetic. Since then, acupuncture's popularity in the west has grown rapidly.

How does Acupuncture Work?
Acupuncture works to help maintain your body’s equilibrium. It involves the insertion of very fine needles into specific points on the body to regulate the flow of ‘qi’, your body’s vital energy.

For a number of lifestyle and environmental reasons, qi can become disrupted, weakened or impeded, which can result in symptoms of pain or illness.

Because energy meridians range across the whole body, the points used are not necessarily close to where you experience pain or discomfort.

Who has Acupuncture?
Many people come to acupuncture for help with specific symptoms or to relieve specific pains.

Some people have acupuncture because they feel generally unwell but have no specific western medicine diagnosis. Others choose acupuncture simply to enhance their feeling of well being.

Treatment is aimed at the root cause of the imbalance of your condition as well as your main symptoms. This approach helps with resolving your problem and enhancing your feeling of wellbeing. You may notice other less obvious problems resolve as your main health complaint improves. Instead of obstacles and problems you begin to see possibilities and solutions.

As everybody is unique, please contact me if you would like to to find out how acupuncture can help you.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided in this site is accurate. It is not the intention to mislead or misinform anyone.