Consider yourself lucky if you’ve never suffered from neck or shoulder pain. These pains have been so common throughout history that they’ve inspired expressions such as “a pain in the neck” to describe an especially troublesome person or situation and “the weight of the world on my shoulders” to describe a heavy emotional load. At best they are annoying, but severe or chronic conditions can diminish your quality of life.
Since the neck supports the head – and because of its position and range of motion – it is more vulnerable to injury than any other part of the spine. Severe cases can require treatment by a licensed health professional. Neck pain can be caused by something as simple as bad posture or as dramatic as an accident or disease. Long hours spent sitting in front of a computer, especially in a high pressure workplace, often causes pain and headaches – literal as well as figurative!
Today, more than 3 million Americans use acupuncture to treat pain. These treatments often include herbal medicine and acupressure to help reduce muscle spasm, improve circulation, and promote relaxation. (Acupressure, which does not use needles, applies pressure to acupuncture points on “meridians,” locations across the anatomy which affect specific organs or body parts.) The benefits of acupuncture in treating neck and shoulder pain are not just anecdotal; they have been studied and documented.
After reviewing 29 well-documented studies involving almost 18,000 patients, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center concluded that acupuncture is effective for treating four chronic pain conditions – neck and back pain, osteoarthritis, headaches, and shoulder pain – in conjunction with other therapies. Published in 2012 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the review described how 50% of acupuncture patients felt relief from pain with their pain levels halved. Other studies have shown acupuncture to be helpful in treating neck pain caused by whiplash as well as by certain degenerative neck disorders.
If you or a loved one is experiencing neck or shoulder pain, my associates and I can provide a safe, effective, and relatively inexpensive treatment tailored to your needs.
Please call Coral Gables Acupuncture at 305.446.3009, or use the form to the right to schedule an initial consultation with me or one of my associates. Our office is easily accessible from anywhere in Miami-Dade County, with patients coming from Wynwood, Downtown, Brickell, Coral Gables, South Miami, Cocoplum, Pinecrest and Key Biscayne.
