As a TCM practitioner (i.e. someone who has devoted their training in acupuncture to it's original context - i.e. traditional Chinese Medicine diagnosis and treatment) it really ticks me off to see so many other health practitioners offering acupuncture treatments.
Some are physio's, naturopaths, GP's, chiropractors, massage therapists and even some barely-trained "healers" that do spiritual healing or untrained musculoskeletal therapists.
Firstly, patients often have a negative experience of acupuncture because these poorly trained acupuncturists don't spend years practicing their needle technique. This is an important part of a TCM-acupuncturists training.
We practice on cushions, oranges, stacks of paper etc before moving onto a "fellow student", let alone a patient in a student clinic.
It appalled me when i worked at a physio clinic once in Beechboro, that a Physio there simply purchased a box of acupuncture needles and started sticking them into the patients.
Of course, many say they are doing "dry needling" not acupuncture. But patients don't know much of a difference and they end up with a bad experience of acupuncture, or the understanding of "I've tried acupuncture and it doesn't work for me". When they haven't tried acupuncture at all, they have been some practitioners practice cushion!
Of cource not all other health practitioners are poorly trained in acupuncture. I'm just hiliting that we should be aware of this - Patients - check the training of your practitioner. In our modernised, "consumer-driven" health care system, the practitioner has come to expect this kind of scrutiny. It's good that you ask about qualifications and practitioners - we shouldn't take this as a negative thing when potential patients ring up and ask all kinds of questions about your qualifications.
Chinese medicine is a complex medical system, requiring years to fully understand the principals and philosophy behind a good acupuncture prescription, let alone the ability to make the right diagnosis.
Acupuncture, whether treating pain, injuries and musculoskeletal type conditions or internal medicine conditions (eg constipation, insomnia, infertility) gets the best results when it's used according to the Chinese medicine diagnosis.
You won't get the benefit of the Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment Principal use from a non-TCM trained practitioner offering acupuncture.
