CHRONIC PAIN ACUPUNCTURE IN BONDI JUNCTION SYDNEY

Have you been in pain for a long time? Feeling frustrated with lack of relief? Find out if acupuncture can help, book online here or contact us today.

For anyone experiencing chronic pain, you know that it has a wide reaching impact on your quality of life, affecting not only your physical strength and movement, but also can impact on your sleep, mood, energy, weight and ultimately the relationships with those around you.

Chronic pain can come in many different forms, such as:

• Back pain

• Sciatica

• Neck pain

• Headaches & migraine

• Radiculopathy

• Shoulder pain

• Frozen shoulder

• Tendinopathy

• Knee pain

• Osteoarthritis

• Rheumatoid arthritis

• Peripheral neuropathy

And that’s just to name a few main categories.

Pain is only meant to be our body’s signal that something needs attention, but often in chronic pain cases, that signal has become stuck in a loop, even after an initial injury has been recovered. This prolonged pain signal reduces blood flow, causes contraction and guarding, impacts our sleep quality (which is our number one healing and recovery time), drains our energy, heightens our sympathetic fight or flight response, increases inflammation, and makes us more irritable and anxious. All of this creates an internal environment that traps us in pain.

Before coming to acupuncture, most people have already tried multiple treatments, seen various specialists and taken different medications, but still feel stuck in an endless loop of pain. 

How do we use acupuncture for chronic pain?

First of all, you are not meant to be in chronic pain and your body has an amazing ability to heal, repair and adapt. An acupuncturist's job is to identify where your body’s natural healthy circulation and movement has been impaired, and work to restore proper flow and function. We do not view your painful area as something bad or broken that needs to be “fixed” or attacked and defeated. Rather, it’s better to think of it as an area that has lost its way, like a kid lost in a supermarket crying and making a scene, and we need to get it back in touch with healthy normal circulation, or bring the kid back to his mum.

Sounds like a nice idea right, but how do we actually do that?

Well it will be different for everyone depending on what type of pain, where it is, how long it’s been around for, your age, lifestyle and diet, how much it’s impacting your sleep, digestion, energy and mood, plus other complicating factors like inflammatory conditions and structural issues. We must always look at you as a whole person as well as assessing the specific areas associated with the pain. Often the area of pain is not the main area to be treated as it is just the tip of an iceberg of imbalances that are keeping you trapped in chronic pain. You’ve probably already tried treatments focused on the area of pain without longstanding relief anyway, so maybe it’s not the key to your recovery.

At Acupuncture Grove in Bondi Junction Sydney, we use acupuncture for chronic pain tailored specifically to you. Typically if it’s going to be helpful for you, we will know very early on within the first 4-6 treatments (often earlier). That doesn’t mean that it will be completely better in that time, usually chronic conditions will take some time to unravel and may need ongoing maintenance, but you should feel some early signs of relief or improvement from the acupuncture if it’s going to help. Once we know how you’re responding to the acupuncture, we’ll then work out a treatment plan for you. The ultimate goal would be to get you to a place where you don’t need acupuncture anymore, or it’s just something you do for maintenance.

Chinese herbal medicine may also be a useful adjunct when working with chronic pain. It’s the same idea as acupuncture, we use it for a period to help address certain imbalances, but as you improve, we aim to get to a point where it’s no longer necessary. If it’s something that we feel will help you along, we’ll discuss it as part of the treatment plan. 

If you would like to try acupuncture for chronic pain with Acupuncture Grove in Sydney’s Bondi Junction, please

book online here or contact us with any questions.