Could Acupuncture Help Your Chronic Fatigue?
Fatigue is often regarded as a minor problem. After all, everyone gets tired occasionally. However, fatigue is much more than a trivial issue if it lasts months or years and interferes with your ability to work and take care of your home or family. Fortunately, acupuncture treatments can relieve chronic fatigue symptoms and boost your energy level.
How Does Acupuncture Work?
Acupuncture treatments keep your body balanced by eliminating blockages of Qi. The essential lifeforce that travels through your body in a network of channels called meridians.
Inserting hair-thin needles into your skin at strategic locations removes blockages, allowing Qi to once again flow freely. Once the normal flow of Qi is restored, pain, fatigue, and other symptoms soon begin to fade.
Chronic Fatigue Makes Life Much More Difficult
Performing seemingly simple tasks may leave you feeling exhausted for hours or days if you have chronic fatigue. When you collapse on the couch after putting a load of laundry in the washer, it's impossible to even think about exercising or spending the evening out with friends.
Eventually, chronic fatigue can affect your relationships, lead to depression, and make it difficult to work or care for children. Fatigue isn't the only symptom. You may have trouble sleeping, and may not feel rested when you do sleep. Dizziness, headaches, sore throat, and other aches and pains can accompany chronic fatigue. Any task that requires concentration can make you feel just as exhausted as physical activity.
Unfortunately, medical treatment for chronic fatigue doesn't exist. Instead, doctors focus on treating symptoms. They may recommend anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve headaches or tight muscles, or suggest anti-depressants to relieve depression. These medications can be helpful but only offer temporary results and may produce unpleasant side effects.
Is Acupuncture Effective for Chronic Fatigue?
All-natural acupuncture treatment targets the source of your symptoms without causing any side effects. Treatments help you feel better by triggering the release of endorphins, brain chemicals that ease pain, improve your mood, and make you feel more relaxed.
Acupuncture also reduces inflammation that can cause pain, loosens tight joints and muscles, and improves regulation of the endocrine system. The system controls metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, sleep, appetite, and mood.
Difficulty sleeping can be related to a deficiency of melatonin, the hormone that controls your sleep-wake cycle. Acupuncture treatments prompt your body to produce more melatonin in the evening, helping you fall asleep and stay asleep.
Your acupuncturist may also recommend Chinese herbal medications that help you feel less tired and more energetic. In addition to receiving acupuncture treatments and taking herbal medications, making a few changes to your diet may also help you battle fatigue.
Research projects studying the effects of acupuncture treatments on chronic fatigue have produced encouraging results. In one Chinese study published in HealthCMi, researchers reported that participants who received 20 acupuncture or warm needling acupuncture treatments noted significant improvements in general, physical and mental fatigue. All of the patients had persistent or relapsing chronic fatigue for six months or longer before beginning acupuncture treatment.
Are you tired of living with chronic fatigue? Acupuncture may ease your pain, increase your energy level, and improve your mood. Contact our office to schedule your appointment.
Sources:
Acupuncture Today: Acupuncture and TCM Approaches for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 8/05