Edinburgh Natural Health Centre

Acupunture in Edinborough

Acupuncture is one of the main methods of treatment in traditional Chinese medicine and has been in use almost certainly for over 5000 years.

First used probably in Sri Lanka it spread to China where it has spent probably 4000 years under test and development.

It is possible that something like it was used in Europe even further back.

Acupuncture is the technique of inserting thin sterilised needles (the actual definition is 'filiform' needle, which means like a 'thread' or filament) through the skin at specific places on the body.

Acupuncture's aim is to relieve your pain and stress, control disease, and stimulate your body's own immune system and self-healing powers.

Acupuncture can not only help you resist and overcome illness - it can reduce your susceptibility.

Acupuncture is used to treat a huge variety of chronic, acute and degenerative conditions, including muscular, neurological and arthritic problems. It is used for gynaecological conditions, pain of all sorts, ranging from headache, migraine and earache to sciatica, back pain and sports injuries.

Acupuncture can often be used very successfully to treat anxiety, depression, insomnia, palpitations and fatigue. It is also used for digestive problems, like irritable bowel syndrome, and respiratory conditions like asthma. Quite a few people like it because it can be used to help detoxify the body!

What are acupuncture points and where are they?
Acupuncture points lie mostly along what are called acupuncture meridians or channels. Some research seems now to be showing that these actually exist, but if you've ever had the 'de-qi' needle sensation explained above running precisely along the length of an acupuncture meridian you will be in little doubt as to their existence.

Measurements of skin resistance appear to show a difference over the skin at acupuncture points as compared with non-acupuncture point areas.

Until some basic tissue or nervous substructure is discovered that explains these meridians there will always be people who can't be convinced.

Until then think of the flight paths aeroplanes take. These are marked on maps, known by pilots, pass over the same geography on the ground or sea, take energetic parcels of matter (you and me) from place to place - but you can't see or touch them. They have purpose, direction and energy, like a vector - but they are merely areas of the sky through which things pass.

Western acupuncture
This is practised by doctors and others who don't use, or don't believe in, or haven't learned the traditional system of medicine which is Chinese medicine. So they use acupuncture points because they hurt or seem to behave like what are called 'trigger' points. Western acupuncture practitioners are often osteopaths or doctors who use them mainly for temporary pain relief or to relax the underlying tissues.

Traditional Acupuncture
Many countries absorbed acupuncture and Chinese medicine from China and then over the centuries changed the way they used it, so now we have different schools of acupuncture based on the countries concerned, like Japan, or Korea or Vietnam. A book written some years ago was called 'American Acupuncture'.

But all these systems base their theory to a greater or lesser extent on the traditional Chinese theory of disease and health, which you can read more about here.

Traditional acupuncture uses a much bigger understanding of disease than 'western' acupuncture. From your point of view, this means that the causes of your condition will be treated in a more comprehensive, and possibly comprehensible, way than otherwise. Acupuncture points may well be chosen in the same places as they would have been by a 'western' acupuncturist, but other more distant points will also be used. Why? Because theory and experience have shown that by using them you'll get a faster, longer-lasting, benefit.

Traditional Chinese medicine has embraced much of modern Western medicine, sought to understand it in terms of Chinese medicine, and used it sometimes even more effectively than would its Western or orthodox practitioners. Western medicine has been much slower to try to understand Chinese medicine, initially consigning it to being 'quack' medicine.

Over the years, although they don't understand it properly, many doctors of Western medicine have been forced to accept that traditional acupuncture works - and the same is going for an increasing range of other forms of 'alternative' medicines.

What is the 'pulse' and what is pulse-taking?
When your doctor or nurse takes your pulse, he or she places a finger over what is called your 'radial' pulse at your wrist, and counts how many heart-beats you have in a minute. (Actually, they count the number in 15 seconds and multiply by 4.)

The Chinese medicine way of taking your pulse is quite different, though you may have to watch carefully to notice the difference. Your acupuncturist will take your pulse in 3 different locations on each wrist, and at two or more depths, making a total of at least 12 positions, each of them connected with one of your body energy patterns.

These patterns are called, for convenience, your heart pulse, your kidney pulse, your liver pulse, your stomach pulse, and so on, but if your acupuncturist says that your liver pulse is a bit 'wiry', don't assume that there is anything wrong with your liver organ - which may be the best in Edinburgh, if not Scotland!

The pulses are measured for speed, certainly, but that is only one of about thirty different qualities. Other qualities include - for example - emptiness (which can mean deficiency of 'qi' or 'blood', or 'summer heat', or a lack of 'jing') or floating (which can mean that the disease condition is on the outside level of your body, or may mean 'yin deficiency', or chronic disease) or rough (which can mean 'cold and damp', or obstruction of qi, or that your Blood and jing are weak and empty, or that there is some kind of perverse energy in your system).

Other qualities are deep, weak, thin, wiry, hollow, and so on and each has its own specific meaning.

As you see from the above examples, each pulse quality means something, as defined - quite precisely - by Chinese medicine. Putting all the information together, for all the 12 pulses, takes experience and knowledge.

But it is more complicated than even that because each energy represented by its pulse relates in various ways to each of the other energies so related. Each pulse is both a parent and a child, and some can disrupt the others in certain circumstances.

So you have twelve pulses and up to thirty different pulse qualities; you have the energy of each pulse (and you want them all to get along smoothly); and they all inter-relate in various subtle ways, just like the organs in your body.

So as you chat away about your family and the weather, your acupuncturist is trying to put together a complicated mosaic of your energies in his head. Don't be offended if he sometimes closes his eyes!

Cautions
We prefer that you don't have a bath or shower immediately before coming.
Don't eat a big meal before or after your treatment.
Don't have coffee or alcohol on the day of your treatment.
It is best not to travel far or for too long before or after your treatment.
Don't take vigorous exercise before or after your treatment.

Please tell us .
.. if you are taking any medication, food supplements, herbs or homoeopathic remedies, or regularly apply any creams or ointments to your skin.

Also please tell us if you are on a particular food diet, or always avoid certain foods or liquids.

.. and if you are pregnant, or develop a cold or cough or other infection between treatments: we may be able to help, and not knowing about it might mean the treatment we had planned for you wouldn't work so well.

How do you find a good practitioner of acupuncture in Edinburgh?
Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott is a member (MBAcC) of the British Acupuncture Council.

All member of the British Acupuncture Council have completed a thorough training of at least three years in traditional acupuncture and western medical sciences appropriate to the practice of acupuncture.

(Jonathan got a Licentiate of Acupuncture from the Traditional College of Acupuncture in Leamington Spa after three years' study, a Batchelor of Acupuncture from the British College of Acupuncture after another two years, a Diploma in Acupuncture from Nanjing University in China after a period thereof six months, and has been on many other courses ranging from a few days to a few years each, some full-time some part-time, over some 28 years. He has also qualified with a Diploma in Chinese Herbal Medicine after a three year part time course at the Northern College of Acupuncture in York, England. Training included acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion, cupping, guasha, shiatsu, tuina, diet, nutrition, treating acute and chronic disease, treating children, Chinese herbal medicine and courses in a range of ancillary subjects. He has also trained as a Bowen therapist, as a homoeopath and in various forms of massage and manipulation.)

The British Council of Acupuncture maintains common standards of education, ethics, discipline and practice to ensure the health and safety of the public at all times. Members abide by a Code of Ethics and Practice, and are covered by Professional Indemnity and Public Liability insurance.

Cost
The consultation session costs £45 per half-hour, pro-rata. Bear in mind that this consultation session can last at least one hour depending what you need to tell us and what we need to find out. It is never sensible to skimp on this, the most important session.

Subsequent sessions, which may last up to 45 minutes each, cost £45 per session.

We ask that you pay by cheque or cash.

Appointments
Please ring for an appointment: 07950-012501
or 0131-3468186

Alternatively email us using the form on our contact page.