Acupuncture for anxiety?

[mele48]

Hi, again - has anyone tried acupuncture as a tool in their kit for managing anxiety?  I know to be careful what you read on the internet, but I came across an interesting scientific study that sparked me thinking about it.  

I'd appreciate any comments from folks who have tried it.  I have a friend who does it for pain management and has enjoyed a great deal of relief, but I don't know anyone who has tried it for anything else, particularly anxiety or depression.

[mele48]

Hi, there - thank you for the reply.  I went ahead and tried it.  With the acupuncture, he did a great deal of pressure point therapy as well, where he used his hands to apply pressure on various points of my body.  I found it to be very relaxing, but can't say if it was from the acupuncture or the pressure point.  However, I didn't find the affects to be long lasting at all - similar to your experience perhaps?

My insurance doesn't cover it, so I won't be using this as a regular thing.  It was nice to relax for a few hours!

[Paxiled]

Acupuncture has been studied extensively, and although no one knows why it works, it does work quite a lot of the time.  By your standards, if something doesn't work all the time, it's a placebo, but did you know no drug out there for mental illness has proven to work more than 30% of the time, for short periods of time only, and barely beat placebo?  And that those trials weeded out everyone suffering from difficult to treat problems?  Yet many people are helped by them.  Same for CBT therapy -- in double blind trials it worked 30% of the time.  And in what way is acupuncture dangerous?  While some people have suffered nerve damage, as long as you stay away from some of the more exotic Chinese treatments for serious disorders devised at a time when nothing else was available, acupuncture is far safer than any drug or surgery available -- in fact, it's not even close to being in that category of potential harm.  Add to that, a large number of people who get better with traditional medicine are also having a placebo effect.  And one would have to say, placebo is the best medicine of all, as it has no side effects or long-term dangerous consequences.  No medicine is completely safe, but your view of acupuncture is just not at all accurate but sounds more like the people paid by pharmaceutical companies to get people not to purchase anything but allopathic products.

[dairyking887]

Mele:  

I tried a long series of acupuncture treatments for my severe anxiety disorder about, oh, eight or nine years ago.  I think I went, like, thirty or forty times.  My experience was that the treatments had a very, very, very light anti-depression + anti-anxiety benefit.  It was nothing that lasted for a significant period of time, and nothing robust enough to get me functional in the world.  In short, if it had cost me a lot of money, I would have been upset, but since my insurance covered it, it was mildly (a 1 on a scale of 10) beneficial.  I also used moxibustion, an herb you burn like incense and hold under the bottom of your foot.  It had a mildly sedating effect.  I would say it's worth a go if you can afford it.  I'm not sure if acupuncture is a "dangerous procedure," but like anything you have to weigh the risks and drawbacks.  

Chris

[Brentm48093]

Acupuncture is "working" for your friend because it is nothing more than a placebo (they pretend its working, so the body responds and does what they think it is doing, relieving pain, taking away headaches, helping my car start in the morning, etc). If you believe something will relieve your stress or heal you, it will; mind overt matter.

The truth is acupuncture is a dangerous procedure that has no health benefits and can cause serious medical issues: http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/07/acupuncture-nightmare-its-not-all-safe-or-effective/

See an actual Dr, your Primary Care Physician. "Holistic" and "Alternative" medicine is just another word for "Scam."