Natural medicine for back pain: 5 Ways Acupuncture helps back pain

Back pain that keeps coming back or never fully resolves is an extremely common complaint in our clinic for a few reasons:

Conventional treatments often fall short in providing sustained long term relief.
Conventional treatments typically consist of prescription pain killers, corticosteroid injections, and surgery. Patients often prefer a more natural and holistic solution that addresses root causes. Sometimes patients fail to get the desired relief from conventional treatments and need to look elsewhere

Patients are becoming more aware of the side effects and other negative long term consequences of long term medication use and unnecessary surgeries.
In an effort to avoid conventional treatments, patients are seeking out more natural alternatives that help to address the root cause of back pain effectively and provide longer term relief instead of a temporary bandaid.

Nervous system regulation has also become a mainstream topic and patients are starting to connect the dots to chronic pain. They notice that their back pain flare ups coincide with stressful events in their lives. As a result, they are looking for a solution that can address the pain itself, as well as provide nervous system regulation and improve their overall health.

Conventional medical providers are referring their patients for acupuncture.
Acupuncture is an evidenced-based treatment for chronic back pain - clinical studies show that it is effective. Patients also appreciate that our non-invasive treatments not only provide relief from back pain, but also help to improve strength and mobility and address underlying health imbalances for better wellness.

Surgeons, orthopedists and other specialists are becoming more informed about the evidence supporting acupuncture for back pain. As a result, they are referring their patients for acupuncture. Here are some of the specific situations in which they are likely to recommend acupuncture for back pain:
Uncomplicated back pain that is likely to improve with conservative measures like acupuncture
Imaging shows minimal structural damage/injury that does not immediately require surgery
The patient is not interested in injections or long term pain medications, or the patient has medical reasons to avoid such treatments.
Back surgery has failed to provide relief
The patient is experiencing side effects from painkillers, is unable to continue painkillers due to health risks, or is not getting the desired pain relief from them.

Natural medicine for back pain: 5 Ways Acupuncture helps back pain
Let’s get into some of the ways that acupuncture provides effective relief for back pain.

1. Acupuncture Relieves Muscle Tension and Trigger Points

Back pain typically involves a combination of weak and tight muscles. If you have acute or chronic back pain, you are likely very aware of areas that feel tender to the touch, stiff, sore, or tight. These areas likely contain trigger points.

Trigger points are localized areas within a muscle of irritated tissue that often cause tenderness, restriction, dysfunction, and sometimes radiating pain to adjacent areas. Patients often describe these areas as “knots.”

Acupuncture is extremely effective at releasing trigger points. It works by:

interrupting dysfunctional pain signaling
relaxing tight muscle fibers
bringing fresh circulation to the tissue to restore muscle function

Releasing trigger points helps with immediate and short term relief and contributes to long term relief throughout the course of a treatment plan.

*Have you heard about “Dry Needling” and wonder how it relates to what I’m talking about here? I’ve added a little blurb at the end that you can jump to.

2. Acupuncture Reduces Inflammation Naturally

Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury, and it’s normal, healthy and helpful in certain contexts. However, chronic and generalized inflammation can develop and it contributes to pain, tension, feeling “off” and to difficulty healing from an injury.

When we’re talking about inflammation in the context of back pain, there are two main things to consider:

Local inflammation
Systemic inflammation

Local inflammation mentioned here refers to irritation at the lumbar spine, in the low back, and in the hips. Inflammation of soft tissue around the lumbar spine can contribute to nerve irritation, resembling nerve impingement. It should be noted here that diagnosed disc issues are very rarely the sole driving cause of back pain. Often when there are disc issues, there is soft tissue inflammation as well. Treating the soft tissue helps relieve pain in the vast majority of cases – this can be accomplished with acupuncture.

Here are some of the ways that we know acupuncture reduces inflammation:

Triggers the body to release powerful natural anti-inflammatory agents such as adenosine ¹,²

and interleukin-10³,⁴

Improves circulation to targeted tissues to promote healing⁵
Regulating the nervous system⁶
Reduces pro-inflammatory cytokines⁷,⁸

An added benefit of acupuncture is that unlike NSAIDs (anti-inflammatory painkillers) there are no bad side effects of acupuncture, and risk of complications is extremely low. Most people experience additional benefits of acupuncture beyond addressing back pain, including improved sleep, digestion, immune system health, and feeling of calm.

3. Acupuncture Triggers the release of your body’s natural painkillers

In addition to helping to heal tissues to address the root cause of pain, acupuncture also provides pain relief. In Chinese medicine when there is pain, that means there is stagnation of Qi and Blood. Acupuncture helps to “course” (move) the qi, and remove the blockages that cause pain and dysfunction.

From a scientific point of view, we understand acupuncture to do the following:

Triggers the body to release powerful endogenous painkillers including endorphins. This provides local and system effects.
Electroacupuncture enhances this effect. Electroacupuncture is the application of gentle electrical stimulation on select points.
Pulses of electricity at a low frequency around ~1-2 Hz triggers the release of beta-endorphins, enkephalins and norepinephrine among others.⁹,¹⁰ In treatment, this feels like tapping or pulsing to the patient.
Pulses of electricity at higher frequencies around 80-100 Hz triggers the release of dynorphin among others which is helpful for acute pain. In treatment, this feels like a constant buzzing to the patient.¹⁰
Treatments can combine high and low frequencies to treat acute flare ups of a chronic pain issue.
An initial course of frequent acupuncture treatments can provide long term relief of chronic pain conditions.¹¹

4. Acupuncture Regulates the nervous system

Have you ever noticed that when you are more stressed out, you are more likely to have a back pain flare up? Although many people have experienced this, it’s not common knowledge that being in a state of “fight or flight” can pose an increased challenge to healing back pain.

However, studies show that chronic stress contributes to autonomic dysregulation, and is associated with chronic pain conditions including back pain specifically.¹²

In Chinese Medicine pain by definition is stagnation of qi and blood. When we are stressed this can contribute to stagnation of qi. Promoting free flow of qi relieves “stuck” emotions as well as stagnation affecting muscles and nerves to relieve pain and help us feel calm and grounded.

Acupuncture treatments have been shown to engage the parasympathetic nervous system,13 which helps oppose and downregulate the body’s “fight or flight” response. In a parasympathetic state, the body shifts toward rest, digestion, recovery, and repair. Blood flow to internal organs improves, stress hormones decrease, and the body is better able to support restorative processes like sleep and tissue healing. This regulation of the nervous system is believed to play an important role in chronic pain relief.

A relaxing acupuncture session in which the patient feels safe is essential when optimizing for parasympathetic engagement. For this reason, at Gotham Integrative Acupuncture and Wellness we always prioritize patient comfort and open communication throughout the treatment. We always make sure our patients are comfortable enough to fall asleep - and they often do!

5. Acupuncture Addresses root causes, not just symptoms

Acupuncture is one treatment modality under the umbrella of Chinese medicine. Chinese Medicine is a complete (holistic) system which provides a framework for understanding pain and dysfunction in the body as essentially inter-related to everything else going on in the body.

At Gotham Holistic, we provide modern “dry needling” style orthopedic approach that includes electroacupuncture within a holistic treatment that considers and treats related issues.

With this holistic approach we are treating often-ignored secondary complaints that may exacerbate back pain. These include:

-Insomnia or poor sleep

-Stress and anxiety

-Postural tension

-Hip and glute weakness, trigger points and mobility

We provide acupuncture and Chinese Medicine for back pain in New York City.

At Gotham Integrative Acupuncture and Wellness we provide treatments for back pain. We’ve helped many New Yorkers get relief from stubborn back pain with our custom tailored treatments. We integrate a variety of modalities from Chinese Medicine, depending on what is appropriate for each patient. Modalities include: Acupuncture, Custom herbal formulas, topical herbal liniments, cupping and gua sha.

All New Patients start with an in-person Complimentary Consultation. During the consultation, new patients meet with the acupuncturist to go over health history, current complaints, and health goals. We'll determine the best treatment plan for you and answer any questions you may have. You'll have the option to get started with treatment right away, but there's no obligation to do so.

Your treatment plan for back pain, as well as any secondary complaints, may include acupuncture, herbal therapy, or both.

If you’d like to learn more, book a consultation to find out if we can help you! For questions, reach us by email at info@gothamholistic.com or phone at (646) 655-3183.