It's not unreasonable to think that an acupuncturist simply inserts needles into acupucture points, and that is the breadth of the possible treatment options. In reality, a degree level acupuncture course teaches students to use many different treatment modalities that can act as an adjunct or as an alternative to needling. This can include massage, cupping, moxa, gua sha and dietry and lifestyle advice and, electro acupuncture.
Much of the teaching I do at the Northern College of Acupuncture is based around teaching students how to use these additional options along side acupuncture, and one of my favourite lessons to teach is on the topic of electro-acupuncture.
It is as simple as it sounds. It's acupucture, but with electricity as an added bonus. You can get great results from manual acupuncture but sometimes some extra stimulation is the missing peice of the jigsaw when it comes to treatment. Looking at it from a different perspective, electro acupuncture is an electro stimulation therapy but with the added bonus of the benefits of acupuncture. Many people have used TENS for pain management, and electro acupuncture simply brings needles to that particular table.
So why is it helpful to run electricity through the body when treating pain? Well, there's a few different ideas about this and research into the field has thrown up a number of different explainations for the benefits. Electrical impluses sent via nerves from our brains send messages to our muscles to ask them to move - Electro acupuncture can help interrupt or reset these messages which changes the behaviour of the muscle. Our nerves also carry electrical messages back to our brain to tell it we should be experiencing pain in an area. Electro acupuncture can prevent the transmission of these messages and therefore reduce our experience of pain. There is also good evidence the electro-acupuncture can stimulate the release of feel-good and pain-releiving hormones and chemicals such as endorphins and seratonin.
The application of electro-acupuncture isn't as frightening as your imagination might suggest. As with acupuncture treatment, small fine needles are inserts at points around the body. One or two pairs of these points will be selected for electro acupuncture, usually the points chosen form a pathway across the painful area. Small wires are then clipped to these needles, which lead to the electro acupuncture machine. The machine itself works using a single battery and allows the acupuncturist to control the strength and other aspects of the treatment. As the patient, you might feel a light pulsing or a buzz or tingle while the machine is operating.
A frequently asked question is: Is it dangerous? Of course we are putting needles in the skin and adding electricity to the mix, so there are some areas and situations which need to be avoided. There will be some extra questions asked of you while deciding if electro-acupuncture is the right treatment for you. Outside of these considerations is a safe therapy that provides lots of benefits.
Electro acupuncture is particularly good at treating chronic muscle pain and nerve related conditions such as sciatica or other trapped nerve issues, however it can be used for reducing scar tissue and some stages of fertility treatment as well.
References:
Stephen Lee - Electroacupuncture handbook
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753332223003049