The needles are very thin, almost as thin as a strand of hair and are inserted anywhere from a fraction of an inch to a full inch. The treatments usually start out by having them very frequently. Possibly five to seven times per week, as the treatment starts to help, they taper them down to less frequent visits. There are several altered versions of the original acupuncture. There is the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and a westernized version.
Most practices however stay with the Oriental way of acupuncture.
The different types vary in small ways. Some believe that acupuncture is simply a psychological treatment. In a study done recently there were some people that got a fake acupuncture treatment. Fifty percent of them believed the fake treatment to have worked. It is proven to help alleviate pain on a short term basis, still other s believe it is a useless practice.