Acupuncture for Back Pain

Can acupuncture treat back pain?

Our Brisbane acupuncture clinics provide treatment for all types of musculoskeletal conditions, especially back pain.  Back pain is a common problem affecting most adults at some point in their lives and left untreated can lead to more serious issues, such a spinal and disc degeneration.

What causes back pain?

Your spine is made up of 33 bones stacked on top of each other; on it’s own is very floppy and unstable.  The role of the musculoskeletal system is to stabilize these bones, hold you upright and allow you to move in all directions by bending and twisting. For every muscle on the back that allows you to move left, there are several on the right which will stabilize your spine during this movement and vise versa. 

If a single muscle on the back is injured or strained this will cause a tightening to the elastic muscle fibers.   When you next use the injured muscle to twist or bend, it will pull at the sites where the muscle attaches to the bone causing pain and inflammation.  The partnered muscles on the opposite side of the body are now in a constant active state, working twice as hard to stabilize your spine.  These muscles will quickly fatigue, start spasming and then tighten causing you further pain and discomfort. 

If left untreated all the muscles above and below these muscles will start to suffer the same fate but it doesn’t stop there.  Your spine can no longer move freely and this will effect it’s alignment as well as the shape and quality of the vertebra and discs. After chronic periods of back pain the body will try to resolve the problem by fusing the joint,  making the vertebra grow together, preventing all movement of the joint and further injury to the area.  This is known as the 3 phases of spinal degeneration.

How can acupuncture help?

The team at TLC Acupuncture Brisbane are passionate treating back pain and supporting spinal health.  The acupuncturist will do a physical examination of your back and spine to form a diagnosis and work out the best treatment plan for you. 

We use a variety of different methods including acupuncture, electro acupuncture, cupping, gua sha, massage and Chinese herbs as well as vitamin and mineral supplementation to treat back pain.  These treatments may be used singularly in conjunction with each other to remove/reduce the pain and tension from muscles and ligaments, to remove toxic waste products built up in the muscular tissue, to increase cellular growth and repair and to restore as much full movement to the spine as is possible.

For more information about how acupuncture works click here

Disclaimer – Each individual’s treatment and/or results may vary from patient to patient based upon the circumstances of the patient’s specific situation.  A results is not promised and/or guarantee from the act of receiving a treatment.

Is acupuncture the right choice for back pain?

Acupuncture is a treatment with minimal risks, proven to reduce pain and therefore your reliance on pain relieving medications(2).

TLC Acupuncture takes a holistic approach to back pain.  Once the acupuncture treatment has reduced or removed your pain and muscular tension, we  direct our focus to the underlying cause.  Sometimes in this second stage of spinal alignment we have to bring in the help of other professionals such as chiropractors to adjust your bones, physios to provide exercises to strengthen weak muscles, and podiatrists to adjust the alignment of your feet.  Our acupuncturist can identify when this extra help is needed and can direct you to the health professionals we know and trust, working together as a team to achieve the best possible result and to get you back to full health.

When should I see an acupuncturist?

If back pain is a problem, we recommend you book an appointment.  As you can see by the diagram above, putting up with back pain is not beneficial and the problem tends to  get worse with time.

Clinical research trials for acupuncture as an effective treatment for back pain 

 1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3135576/2 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B97803234019680006073 Acupuncture for chronic low back pain: a multicenter, randomize, patient-assessor blind, sham-controlled clinical trial was conducted in April 2013 at Department of Korean Rehabilitation Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea by Cho YJ, Song YK, Cha YY, Shin BC, ShinIH, Park HJ, Lee HS, Kim KW, Cho Jh, Chung WS, Lee JH, Song MYIt concluded that “This randomized sham-controlled trial suggests that acupuncture treatment shows better effect on the reduction of the bothersomeness and pain intensity than sham control in participants with chronic lower back pain”