Heard about acupuncture, but not really sure what it is? Let me try to fill in the blanks for you.

Acupuncture is the practice of inserting very thin, hair-like needles into the body to benefit the body. OK, you probably knew that part already, but how does it work? Unfortunately I can’t give you a definitive answer because the jury’s still out. Plenty of research has uncovered plenty of information, but there’s no single answer just yet.

Rather than something specific and definitive, let me try offer you a metaphor. Our body is a city. It’s complex, bustling, it never sleeps. There are major civic centres, and local areas of activity; these are the organs. There are the streets and pathways; these are the blood vessels. But without its people it’s just metal and concrete, it isn’t alive. The people are the blood and what the Chinese call qi. People need to move about, go here and there to go about their business. Movement is necessary for the city to live. When the city is functioning well traffic is flowing, people get their tasks done day and night. But when there is a traffic accident, or a civic centre shuts down, things start to get hairy. Traffic jams, blocked streets, honking, abuse being hurled about; this is pain or loss of function in an organ or region. When this goes on for a long time we call it disease; civic centres never reopen, roadways are shut off. Acupuncture is like a qualified and confident person coming in and resolving those problems; re-routing traffic, opening blocked roads or walkways, restoring electricity to a building, calming tensions. The people move freely again, and the city flourishes.

It’s not a perfect metaphor, but it does highlight something important. Acupuncture relieves blockages and allows movement. Notice what acupuncture doesn’t do? It doesn’t cure, heal, or fix. I am not capable of curing anything more than a piece of ham. It’s your body that does the fixing, the healing. Acupuncture just helps to remove the things that are stopping that from happening.

What about dry needling, is that the same?

Short answer: Dry needling is a subset of acupuncture that specifically needles tight muscles so that they let go. It’s sort of a style or type of acupuncture that deals exclusively with muscles.

The long answer gets a little finnicky, so feel free to skip over it. If you’re interested in the difference though, I’ll do my best to break it down. ‘Acupuncture’ is not actually a protected term in Australia, so if you pick up a safety pin and accidentally puncture your arm – you’re doing acupuncture! Well OK not really, but what I’m trying to say is you can call anything acupuncture that’s needles going into skin. On the flip side the title of ‘acupuncturist’ is protected; it requires a university degree and ongoing registration with AHPRA among other things. Acupuncture is a broad category that includes dry needling. However what an acupuncturist does is significantly broader in scope. Dry needling treats muscles. Acupuncture treats the body as a whole. Acupuncturists do use dry needling techniques, but these have been around since acupuncture came about a couple of thousand years ago. So it’s more a new, modern name for something that’s been around the bend.

Where did acupuncture come from?

Acupuncture is old. Like, really old. The first writings about acupuncture are from around 2500 years ago, and it’s clear it was being practiced before then. But modern acupuncture looks very little like it did back then. These days we use extremely fine, single-use needles which are typically painless. Back then needles looked closer to knitting needles than anything we use today. Thankfully we’re well past that! It was developed in eastern Asia, in ancient China. However it spread throughout the region and long traditions are found in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other countries as well as of course China. Modern acupuncture as we know it is simply the medicine incorporating modern developments in needle production and medical understanding.