Acupuncture and Pain

Acupuncture is well known for treating and managing pain. It relieves pain through an endogenous opiate release triggered by the needling response. Essentially the body releases its own pain killers allowing the body to relax the nervous system The effect also calms the fight-or-flight response that causes tension, improves circulation, and promotes healing. 

Acupuncture needles create minute abrasions in the muscles that stimulate the brain to secrete specific neuro biochemicals, like endorphins, allowing for relaxation of skeletal, smooth, and cardiac muscles. 

The tiny abrasions caused by acupuncture needles create inflammation in the body. Inflammation is a healthy response to tissue damage. In a healthy system, inflammation should stimulate our self healing response. However, various factors and lifestyle considerations can increase systemic and localized inflammation. This overactivation of inflammation can prevent healing. The overall regulatory effects of acupuncture on the body can help rectify this process. 

Acupuncture stimulates the nervous system by activating nociceptors, sensory nerves, and proprioceptive fibers that travel from the skin to the spine and into the brain. The meridians that acupuncture follows correlate with the peripheral pathways, arterial pathways, myofascial pain syndromes, and referred pain patterns. This stimulation improves nerve signals to your brain, instigating your brain to release endorphins and natural painkillers to shut off the message and sensation of pain to your brain. 

The brain is a key factor in understanding the mechanisms of pain relief from acupuncture. The brain has certain regions that register pain. When an acupuncturist needles points near or far away from the affected areas, it provides additional neurological information to be transported to the brain through the central nervous system. This redirects the brain’s understanding of the pain the body is experiencing.

Acupuncture is also used to relieve muscular tension through accessing trigger points and the subsequent release of the muscles. This eases the pain and discomfort caused by tight or strained muscles.

Acupuncture and the Vagus Nerve

Acupuncture’s relationship to the vagus nerve is an important consideration in understanding the physiological actions of this modality. The vagus nerve is an important part of any conversation that includes the regulation of the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) and Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS), stress responses, and pain conditions. 

The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve and is the longest cranial nerve in the body with a piece of it ending in the concha of the ear, a location with many acupuncture points. It participates in the body’s stress responses and is also a major player in nervous system regulation, specifically with the parasympathetic regulation of the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. 

The vagus nerve is involved in many functions throughout the body:

• It helps to regulate internal organ functions such as heart rate, respiration, digestion, and PNS activity in general. 

• It controls reflex actions such gagging, vomiting, coughing, and swallowing. 

• It communicates between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract also known as the brain-gut axis.

• It provides a balancing element to the sympathetic “fight or flight” within the nervous system. 

• It actively inhibits oxidative stress, inflammation, and sympathetic activity.

Acupuncture stimulates the vagus nerve producing anti-inflammatory effects on the body. It does this by mediating the anti-inflammatory responses in the spleen via signals transmitted through the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is acting as an anti-inflammatory modulator that can coordinate and interconnect the body's functions and autonomic activity. 

There is a lot of research focused on the interaction of acupuncture on the vagus nerve so there’s still more to understand about how it works.

Acupuncture and Energy

Acupuncture is working with an energetic force that functions in the body known as Qi. Our bodies contain a duality, being both a physical reality and an energetic reality. The quantum-mechanical property of being regarded as both a wave and a particle. Qi could perhaps be correlated to a concept of electricity in our bodies. 

Electricity is essential to life and the effects of it can be seen in nerves in the body. This energy or electricity is used to transmit information, muscles use it to force contractions, and the brain uses it to think. The heart’s rhythm comes from an electrical pacemaker and the eyes use electricity to register photons. 

Piezoelectricity is something that is being created continuously in our bodies through the formation of bone, DNA, and various proteins. Looking at the orientation of the collagen fibers and the osteoblasts cells that are stimulated by the tiny electrical currents produced by this deformation of collagen in the stimulation of bone growth is one example of piezoelectric activity in the body. 

Collagen produces electricity and therefore electricity guides bone growth. It also is an electrical producer and is a semiconductor that is found everywhere in the body. The collagen is what produces the electricity in the bone formation as well as in the fascia and other parts of the body. 

Collagen is a principal ingredient of fascia and the collagen in fascia is laid down along lines of mechanical stress that will generate tiny electrical charges every time it is stretched, moved, or manipulated. 

Fascia is piezoelectric and in essence is an interconnected and living electrical web in our body. 

This could help to explain the various acupuncture channels and primary meridians as well as the acupuncture points and other pathways employed. 

Needle manipulation promotes tissue healing by producing biochemical, vasomotor, and neural modulatory effects on connective tissues which thus generates an electrical charge. 

A further investigation could be led towards understanding acupuncture in relation to the laws of physics and quantum physics.