Acupuncture and moxibustion treatment at The Chinese Medicine Practice, Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa

Acupuncture

Pinpointed treatment

Acupuncture is the insertion of fine, sterile, stainless steel needles into special points of the body in order to activate the body’s self-rectifying processes. The points must be specially selected by your Doctor of Chinese medicine or acupuncturist in clinic according to a Differentiation by Chinese Medical Syndrome for satisfactory results to be obtained. The selection will vary according to your changing condition each time you come for treatment; as your treatment performs its work so you change, and as you change so must your treatment also change, and so on.

Acupuncture and ancillary treatments

Often ancillary treatment methods are also used as part of an acupuncture treatment:

• Moxibustion

• Cupping

• Electroacupuncture

Electroacupuncture

Electroacupuncture consists of the stimulation of acupuncture locations by small, modulated, DC electrical currents. The currents are generated by a small electronic unit and applied to the acupuncture locations via wires clipped to the acupuncture needles. The higher the quality of the metallic crystalline structure of the needle, the cleaner and more effective the treatment will be. For this reason, at The Chinese Medicine Practice, only Seirin acupuncture needles, manufactured from the highest grade Japanese surgical stainless steel, are used.

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine

It is often imagined outside of China that acupuncture is the principal treatment technique of Chinese Medicine. While acupuncture is certainly one of the most important medical techniques in world history, it is actually not the primary treatment method in the context of Chinese Medicine as a whole.

For this reason it is less a matter of choice whether a patient receiving Chinese Medicine treatment will receive acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine; rather it is a matter of what is more appropriate to the individual and the Differentiation by Syndrome of their case. The Doctor of Chinese Medicine is able to make this decision and offer the most beneficial recommendations.