Acupuncture and Brain Injury
How Acupuncture Can Help with A Concussion or Brain Injury Non invasive, non pharmaceutical forms of healing
Symptoms of TBI include: headaches, dizziness, exhaustion, cognitive impairment and memory loss. Severe TBIs are categorized may involve paralysis or severe motor dysfunction. Treatment for TBI can include removal of severely damaged brain tissue, electronic monitoring neuroimaging, physical therapy, occupational and speech therapy may also be needed.
Did you know that there are alternative treatments available to help with TBI?
One form of treatment is Acupuncture
Acupuncture works by restoring harmony and balance to the flow of life energy. The human body is designed to be regenerative and self-healing. Acupuncture assists to enhance those self-healing properties. Although there is still not much understand of why acupuncture works, a large amount of research shows that acupuncture does work to help the body heal and recover. Here is a study done showing how acupuncture can help tom decrease limb paralysis after a TBI. https://www.healthcmi.com/Acupuncture-Continuing-Education-News/1983-acupuncture-found-effective-for-traumatic-brain-injury
But how?
Acupuncture, which is a form of Traditional Chinese medicine works with meridians or channels that course through our body. Some of these meridians are on the skin surface of the body, and some go deep within the body, even to the brain.
Acupuncture works by increasing life-energy (Qi) to flow throughout the meridians, thus creating a healing and restorative effect.
What specifically can Acupuncture help with?
Headaches ~
Traumatic brain injuries and concussions can lead to severe headaches.
Acupuncture can relieve or completely eliminate headaches with consistent treatment. Here is a study showing the efficacy of acupuncture for headache relief.
Relaxation, sleep, and anxiety reduction ~
Acupuncture has an effect to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) or rest and digest portion of our autonomic nervous system. When the body enters the PNS, that is where the true healing and regeneration occurs.
Often, when I ask people how they feel after treatment, they simply say they feel relaxed. Even if nothing else is felt, this moment of relaxation is essential for healing to occur.
Stimulation of specific points on the body with tiny sterile needles induces relaxation, deeper sleep and anxiety reduction. These effects are beneficial to support brain function and healing.
Brain injuries can be like a fingerprint, every injury is different. Unlike breaking a bone, which has similar properties, damaging the brain can be highly complex. Each area of the brain has multiple functions that contribute to behavior, body function, speech and every other part of the human experience.
Here are additional tips to help recover from brain trauma:
- Dark, quiet places.
- LOTS of rest!
- Hot yoga
- Meditation – body scanning.
- Low-impact or no-impact exercise
- Herbal medicine
- Brain Balls
- Eating healthy
- Super brain yoga – (link)
- Balance training
- Avoid alcohol, drugs and nicotine
- Learn an instrument or another language.
- In addition to New Vibes Acupuncture, Integrated Brain Centers is a good resource for therapies.