As an experienced acupuncturist helping athletes recover from injury for over 10 years, I’ve seen first-hand the remarkable benefits acupuncture can provide. From weekend warriors to competitive athletes, muscle and joint injuries can happen to anyone and stop you in your tracks. The good news is acupuncture can help you bounce back safely and quickly.
Common sports injuries like sprains, strains, tendonitis, stress fractures, and back pain cause pain, swelling, and loss of mobility. This inflammatory response is your body’s natural healing process, but it often lingers and prevents you from performing at your best. Numerous studies have shown acupuncture helps the recovery process by:
Reducing Inflammation and Swelling
Inserting acupuncture needles into specific body points stimulates increased blood circulation. This rush of fresh blood to the injured area speeds healing and reduces swelling and inflammation [1].
Relieving Pain
Clinical trials have proven acupuncture effectively reduces both acute and chronic pain from sports injuries when compared to standard treatment alone. This safe, drug-free approach brings fast relief from sore, stiff, nagging injuries. Acupuncture releases your body’s natural painkillers called endorphins, which ease discomfort [1].
Improving Range of Motion
By reducing inflammation and swelling and regulating nerve signals, acupuncture improves mobility and flexibility. One study, looking at improving elbow injuries in gymnastics, and tennis players concluded that after 3 months follow-up acupuncture was 100% and had significantly improved the locking, pain, and range of motion of the elbow joint [2]. Another study looking at elite soccer players concluded dry needling showed a significant effect on hip flexion range of motion that persisted 4 wk post treatment [3].
Shortening Recovery Time
On average, studies show acupuncture can shorten recovery from common sports injuries by 2-4 weeks (Scientific Reports, 2019). Imagine shaving a month off that hamstring pull or tennis elbow! Acupuncture gets you healed and back on the field faster.
“I went to Jim for neck and shoulder issues, and after the second visit, I ran a 5k run with barely any pain. I went back just recently for my third visit and now I have no aches or pains in my neck or shoulder. I would usually rub my shoulder and neck constantly throughout the day, but now I’m not bothered by the stress in those areas. I am truly grateful for Jim’s patience and willingness to listen to my pain.” – Latreva P.
Here’s What You Get With Acupuncture Pain and Stress Center
Acupuncture Pain and Stress Center gives you world class diagnosis coupled with acupuncture plus cutting-edge hands on treatment to quickly ease your pain. Once your pain levels are down I will guide you through a graduated movement strategy so you don’t have to keep coming back for the same issues.
At Acupuncture Pain and Stress Center, I will piece the parts of your story together using our unique assessment that looks at your body as one. Here is how I do it.
1. Through discussion: I will investigate the cause of your problem and explain it in simple terms.
2. Assessment: This will reveal the underlying dysfunction(s) and show why you are suffering from your pain.
3. Treatment: I will ease your symptoms quickly using acupuncture and other hands-on techniques that quickly relieve your pain and improve function.
4. Rehab: I will give you simple movements that you easily can fit into your busy day to improve recovery and give lasting relief. Your graduated movement strategy and pain treatments continue as needed to help you build your confidence in your body again so you can quickly get back to thoughtless, fearless, movement. Through this phase of treatment, I can add to the rehabilitation by focusing on specific things like working on speed, agility, flexibility, or strength.
5. Freedom: I plan to make you so happy that you’ll actively tell your friends and family about us. You see, I have built our clinic on word of mouth referrals and I expect my clients to be so happy with the results that they tell their friends and family about me, so they too can get the help they need.
[1] Jihe Zhu, Blagica Arsovska, Kristina Kozovska. Acupuncture Treatment for Sports Injury – Hamstring Muscles Group. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medical Sciences. Vol. 3, No. 6, 2017, pp. 71-73. doi: 10.11648/j.ijcems.20170306.11 [2] Weihua Yang, Fei Wang, “The Effect of Acupuncture on Elbow Joint Sports Injuries Based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging”, Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine, vol. 2022, Article ID 9005792, 7 pages, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9005792 [3] Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 49(2):p 378-383, February 2017. | DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001111