I believe our bodies are remarkably equipped to fix themselves. We do it all the time. If you cut your finger it heals. If you get a bruise or sprain your ankle, it heals. The vast majority of infections we encounter our bodies deal with, all by themselves, without intervention. Acupuncture helps the body heal itself.
We now know that the body develops cancers throughout our lives, yet in most cases, our body catches and deals with those cancers before any illness arises (1). I like to think of the body’s innate ability to heal itself as an internal “Zamboni”.
A Zamboni machine keeps ice rinks smooth. Everyday the ice gets chipped, cut and damaged from skaters blades, and every night, the Zamboni goes out and fixes the damage, leaving a smooth, fully repaired surface for the next day’s skaters. So too our bodies suffer a myriad of minor (and sometimes not so minor) damage throughout the day. While typing this paragraph, I am slightly damaging the capillaries in my fingertips. I am constantly breathing in substances that cause minor damage to my lungs. I bump into things. Yet my internal Zamboni makes the rounds head to toe to fix the vast majority of these injuries.
Acupuncture keeps the Zamboni functioning properly. Acupuncture sends Zamboni like waves of healing energy to specific areas of the body. Once you grasp this simple concept, it becomes clear why acupuncture is so effective for such a wide range of conditions. It also becomes clear why acupuncture sometimes fails. Most illnesses are just damage that is slightly beyond the Zamboni’s current capacity to repair. A little acupuncture tune-up and suddenly your body gets the upper hand and healing occurs. Some problems however are beyond the ability of the body’s internal healing capacity and may require additional interventions or may simply not be treatable.
A consultation with a trained and licensed acupuncturist can help to determine both the health of your internal healing capacity, and the likelihood of acupuncture being able to help.
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