Acupuncture, a part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), is an ancient system of health and wellness that is been used in China for thousands of years. It comprises various body and mind practices that aims at holistic health.

Acupuncture and Naturopathy:
Acupuncture in itself is a complete system of medicine. It is included under Naturopathy as one of the treatment module mainly because of it’s similarity in the basic principle. Both works on the balance and harmony of energy.

Qi :
‘Qi ‘ is the life force according to TCM. It runs throughout the body. Any blockage in the flow causes a disease and removing the blockage by treatments leads to cure.  All the TCM procedures aims at regulating the flow of ‘Qi ”. This ‘Qi ” is similar to the ‘vitality ‘ in Naturopathy and ‘prana ‘ in yoga. The ‘Qi ‘ presents itself as opposites or dualities – yin and yang.

Yin is night, dark, cold, feminine, negative
Yang is day, light, warm, positive, male..
The yin yang balance is health and the imbalance is disease. The belief is that, everything in life has a little bit of its opposite too..

Diagnosis through TCM:
” There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, that are not dreamt of in your philosophy ” – Hamlet, William Shakespeare.

There is a difference between western and eastern philosophy. Western philosophy works on the principle of proof and eastern philosophy works on the principle of belief. Hence the diagnostic methods are different,

• – Inspection (Tongue, eyes, lips, skin, hair, ear, bones, teeth and nails)
• – Auscultation and olfaction
• – Inquiring (History 1 – Taken from the patient. History 2 – Taken from a close relative or friend)
• – Palpation. (General palpation, palpation of tender points – Ah- shi points, pulse diagnosis)

Causes of diseases according to TCM:

1. Extrinsic causes (Those arising from outside the body): This includes six excesses – wind, cold, heat, dampness, dryness and summer heat. The term excess here denotes abnormality, evil or influence.

2. Intrinsic causes (Those are from inside the body): This includes seven emotions. Those are excessive happiness, anger, worry, pensiveness, sadness, fear and anxiety. These emotions upset the yin -yang balance in the body leading to diseases.

3. Miscellaneous causes (Neither intrinsic nor extrinsic): Imbalance in diet, damage by parasites etc…

Procedures under TCM:
Before procedures, there is a basic guideline in TCM. Chinese discovered that there are certain points of the body, which if massaged, punctured, heated or burnt, relieved pain or had a beneficial effect on certain disorders. They also found that by stimulating some widely separated points, a specific internal organ can be influenced. Such series of points are connected to form a channel or meridians.

There are 12 paired channels and 8 extra channels.  Among the 12 channels, 6 are yin channels and 6 are yang channels.
Among the extra ordinary channels, the Ren channel that run on the midline and Du channel that run on the back possess their own points, hence used like twelve paired channels.  Hence there are 14 channels used clinically.

Contraindications of TCM:
There are forbidden points and dangerous points in acupuncture that should be used with caution. There are conditions like cancer, pregnancy, in which extreme care should be taken.

*The effectiveness of the treatment largely depends on the efficiency of the physician. So it is necessary to choose the right physician.