Most people who have done acupuncture within 10 sessions see a marked improvement. Conflicts with conventional health care providers are not a problem. We also collaborate with other specialists and in conjunction with Western medicine. Insurance covers acupuncture now. Acupuncture might still be questionable to some.
Treatments can last from two weeks to two months, according to the acupuncture web site.
Because many questions are still unanswered on exactly how acupuncture works, scientific research and experiments have been done mainly by the cooperation of China and the United States. The latest theories of how acupuncture works rely on the examination of brain function. PET measures the isotope and glucose that is produced during brain activity while fMRI concentrates on the production of oxygen and paramagnetism in the brain. Both research methods found that the insertion of the needles at prescribed acupoints do in fact stimulate the corresponding cortex of the brain, according to Zang-Hee Cho, UCI professor and director of functional brain imaging for acupuncture research. For example, when acupuncture is performed at the acupoint that affects eye problems, PET and fMRI then picks up brain activity in the visual cortex.