You may question why acupuncture as opposed to allergy shots for allergies. After all, aren’t they both needles? Yes and no, is your answer. Though acupuncture uses a form of needles, they are not painful and they aren’t injecting anything. For those of us raised with Western medicine, the idea of acupuncture or any other alternative method may seem hard to understand or even accept, but if we look at how and why it works, it seems to make perfect sense.

Whereas allergy shots treat a specific allergen and symptoms, acupuncture treats the body. According to this article at Healthatoz.com, “An acupuncturist treats the individual, not the symptoms. Acupuncturists claim that allergy symptoms are a way of expressing a deeper imbalance in a person’s system.”

What that means is that regardless of your allergen, you can be treated. This article uses the analogy of your body as a computer and the acupuncture needles as the switches and the acupuncturist is reprogramming the body to accept the allergen without a reaction. My acupuncturist gave a similar analogy of the body as a credit card and the acupuncture procedure removes the magnetic strip, hence removing all reactions. Food allergies can be treated though acupuncture, unlike with allergy shots.

In Eastern medicine beliefs, the body has a flow of energy called “chi” which needs to flow smoothly through the body. When the flow is impeded or clogged, a reaction can occur. Also each organ is affected by different outside factors. As opposed to many Western practitioner’s beliefs that all allergy cases are the same (avoid, treat symptoms, etc), the Eastern belief is that each case is individual. With acupuncture, each person can be treated individually.

Depending on the placement (hands, feet, ears, arms, head, wherever), size of needle, depth of insertion, and combinations, treatment is very specific to the individual. It usually takes a few acupuncture treatments for results (by the way, it really is painless). Sometimes practitioners will use combinations of acupuncture and NAET for best results. Also, your acupuncturist may be able to pick up on specific allergens that your traditional practitioner may have missed.

It really makes a lot of sense that simply by aiming at certain points, the body can be programmed, or actually reprogrammed, to accept something it once thought of as a threat. Therefore, through acupuncture your body learns that say, for instance, dog hair is not a threat to the body so the body does not need to fight it.

Some practitioners recommend continuing your Western medicine (antihistamines, etc) during your acupuncture treatment, some would rather you didn’t. Just like finding your traditional practitioner, you should do some investigative work to find the right acupuncturist for you.

Yinyanghouse.com is a good place to find an overview of acupuncture, including common terminology, different styles and methodologies. It explains terms you may hear like wind and cold inside the body.

- Heather Legg