Arthritis, the swelling or inflammation of one or more joints, causes primarily recurring and severe pain. It affects millions of people around the world. With no available cure, people resort to treatments like acupuncture to get through the joint pain, inflammation, and sometimes muscle weakness and immobility.
Acupuncture treatments have been helping generations manage pain and inflammation, including those caused by arthritis. To truly understand how acupuncture can help treat arthritis, let’s first get a better understanding of arthritis — its types, causes, and symptoms.
Types of Arthritis
Arthritis has more than a hundred different types. However, these five are its most common forms:
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid Arthritis happens when your immune system attacks your joints and organs, causing inflammation. It is an autoimmune disease. Medical professionals are yet to figure out what causes rheumatoid arthritis. If left untreated, it will cause permanent joint damage. Worse, your organs can have the same fate.
Osteoarthritis
This type of arthritis usually comes with age. Your cartilage and fluid start to break down. This causes the rubbing of the bones resulting in pain. Other than age, people diagnosed with obesity may also suffer from osteoarthritis.
Psoriatic Arthritis
Another autoimmune inflammatory disease, psoriatic arthritis, causes patches or rashes on your skin. It attacks both the skin and joints. If you have psoriasis, you are 10 to 30 percent more likely to have this type of arthritis. It causes inflammation in the enthesitis, which pains your lower back and the heel of your foot.
Gout
This type of arthritis has a lot to do with uric acid. You get gout when your body produces too much uric acid or consumes food that raises your uric acid too much. As the uric acid builds up in your joints, it causes extreme joint pain, stiffness, redness, and inflammation. Gout attacks last three to 10 days.
Fibromyalgia
This may be unique out of the five on this list. Fibromyalgia happens when the central nervous system dysfunctions. In the simplest explanation, fibromyalgia causes a person more pain than they’re supposed to feel. For example, a single touch can be painful to them even though it barely affects a typical human.
Arthritis Causes
A dysfunction in the immune system usually causes osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and most forms of arthritis. Obesity also causes arthritis because it puts weight on the joints. Age also leads to the development of this disease. Other causes include gender, smoking, injuries, and genes.
Arthritis Symptoms
There may be a hundred different types of arthritis, but they share swelling and joint pain as symptoms. Other symptoms then vary depending on the type of arthritis.
To name a few, symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis include swelling of the eyes, mouth, heart muscle, and blood vessels. Meanwhile, osteoarthritis symptoms include popping and instability of joints, muscle weakness, and limited mobility. On the other hand, sudden immense pain in your big toe is a common gout symptom.
Acupuncture for Arthritis
Now for the treatment, acupuncture has been with us for ages. A traditional Chinese medicine, this treatment involves inserting thin needles into the body. These needles are so fine that they’re barely felt. They help with pain management, so people with arthritis seek this treatment for relief.
Acupuncture isn’t a cure for arthritis but helps manage the chronic pain it causes.
How Acupuncture Help Treat Arthritis
Arthritis causes inflammation. Acupuncture, on the other hand, produces cortisol, a hormone that controls inflammation. For this reason, many find acupuncture helpful in rheumatoid arthritis treatment. By stimulating endorphin production, acupuncture helps manage arthritis pain like other bodily pain.
Acupuncture targets pain and inflammation through “qi,” — the traditional Chinese medicine’s concept of restoring the body’s fluid and energy flow. This targets pain and inflammation. Another finding that supports the effectiveness of the treatment in pain and swelling management is that acupuncture triggers the release of endorphins and enkephalins. Neurotransmitters such as these reduce pain perception.
This study specifically mentioned that doing acupuncture with or without conjunction with other treatments is “worth trying.” It improves the conditions of those with rheumatoid arthritis.
Another one mentioned that acupuncture had helped osteoarthritis over time. It proved beneficial and has good pain relief.
While these studies have had significant results, it’s important to note – yet again – that acupuncture is not a cure. There’s no official cure yet for arthritis. For this reason, acupuncture is best done with other treatments and medications recommended by professionals. And it’s best to consult with both medical and acupuncture professionals first before getting excited and searching for acupuncture points for osteoarthritis or acupuncture points for rheumatoid arthritis.
With at least 50 million people affected by arthritis, it’s easy to assume some pain you’re feeling is arthritis. However, every pain in your hands and fingers is not arthritis. Before going after acupuncture and other arthritis treatments, ensure you’re correctly diagnosed with arthritis.
Difference between Dry Needling and Acupuncture
Since we’re thoroughly talking about acupuncture, the difference between these two confuses many. These two almost always look the same. And you may be right, except for one reason.
These two have the same process of inserting fine needles into different body parts. It’s just that acupuncture is based on traditional Chinese medicine. Meanwhile, dry needling is based on human anatomy.
Because of this difference in background and perhaps — perspective, they vary in duration. Acupuncture tends to stick needles longer than dry needling.
In Conclusion
Arthritis affects millions of people. It has no official treatment yet, so it also disables many people. It also doesn’t help that there are a hundred types of arthritis. They can be hereditary, degenerative, autoimmune diseases caused by obesity, and many more. And it’s symptoms could range from plain joint pain and inflammation to abnormally chronic pain and skin patches.
Among its many treatments, those with arthritis seek acupuncture to manage pain and swelling. This traditional Chinese medicine has helped many patients get through chronic pain. Inserting needles into different targeted body parts helped treat rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.
Some explain it’s the concept of “qi.” However, American studies have proved this concept and found out how it targets pain and inflammation. Acupuncture proved to benefit and treat arthritis —- even long term, and not just some placebo effect.