It is important to distinguish between acute back pain and chronic back pain. The type of treatment, length of treatment and treatment outcomes will vary, depending on how old the injury is.
When back pain is acute, you have just injured yourself within a week and come in for acupuncture; you will usually see results in a few days.
With chronic back pain, the root of the pain has to be identified and may take more time to alleviate the pain and promote healing. The longer you have a symptom or the more serious it is, the longer it will take to fix it. With chronic conditions, acupuncture treatments have a cumulative effect that will build within the body.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has several effective modalities for treating back pain. The most common modality is acupuncture, which is highly effective for both acute and chronic back pain. Moxibustion (moxa) is a TCM practice that dates back hundreds of years. A particular plant of the artemesia family is processed into a concentrated form and is used as a therapy to send soothing therapeutic heat into the acupuncture channel. It can be placed on a specific acupuncture point(s) directly onto the skin; it can be applied to the handle of an acupuncture needle so the warmth of the moxa heats up the needle and sends the heat down into the affected area, or held above the surface of the skin, having a deeply warming effect.
Chinese herbal formulas are also a very important TCM modality. When I did my internship in China, whether the patient had acute or chronic back pain, they were treated with acupuncture and herbal formulas. Herbs are important because they have a strong effect to correct internal imbalances.
Acupuncture, herbs, moxibustion, and dietary modifications are used in combination or as needed, to unlock stagnation, promote the flow of Qi and blood, and to tonify any deficiencies and degeneration that may come with age and stress.
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