“How long after acupuncture do you feel better?”

It depends on each individual person. Sometimes it takes as little as one treatment. Sometimes as long as a year depends how bad or how served the situation.

Usually my patients leave their session feeling much more relaxed and hopefully with less pain. This may last a few hours to a few days with a continuing sense of more balance.

A good treatment could relieve headaches immediately from 100%-50%.

Usually you feel the difference before and after right away.
Each symptom has different time to heal, but you notice the some effect after the treatment.

Everyone is different. Some people feel relief right away and others take multiple sessions. Acupuncture may need to be combined with herbs for faster results.

Depend your illness .

It really varies from person to person. It can depend on what is causing the headaches amongst other variables. What is your diet like? Are you eating in regular intervals, including plenty of protein, fiber, etc. daily? What about your water and caffeine intake? Have you been checked for food allergies? Are you on any medications that may cause headaches as a side effect? Could it be a hormone imbalance? If you are female, it is quite common for headaches to surface around the time before and during the period. I would suggest getting blood work to see if you have any vitamin deficiencies or hormone imbalances. I am assuming that you have already seen your PCP for the headaches? He or she may want to do more tests such as an MRI.
If you have checked for the previously mentioned things and still have headaches, acupuncture can be helpful so long as there is not something systemically wrong. Try changing up your diet, eliminating dairy, chocolate, caffeine, sugar, wheat and so on, one by one for two weeks at a time to see if that doesn't stop the headaches. Drink more water than usual and halt any alcoholic beverages. It may be one thing, it may be a combination of things that are causing your pain.
Acupuncture efficacy with headaches depends upon your general health, dietary choices, exercise and fresh air. It could also be possible exposure to toxins in your home or workplace. Body mechanics while sitting, walking, sleeping may play a part, as well. Try doing deep stretching several times daily, focusing on the neck and shoulders. Oftentimes, headaches are a result of neck tension that is not addressed. I know when I sit at the computer too long, my neck and shoulders get stiff and even painful if I don't stop every once in a awhile to stretch and get a drink of water. I also get headaches and I use a cervical pillow to support my neck properly while sleeping. I absolutely cannot do without my pillow, it has helped the level of pain quite a bit. Hopefully, after you implement all of these suggestions, you will see a decrease in your headaches. How many treatments are necessary before seeing a change will depend upon how well you are taking care of yourself. Good luck!!

Acupuncture may take several sessions before you notice changes. Many factors can influence results, including the severity of the problem and how long you've had it, as well as the experience of the acupuncturist. I recommend a minimum of 3 treatments before deciding if perhaps you should choose another acupuncturist. Please note, the skill of the acupuncturist is important.

This is a good question, but one that is difficult to answer. Many factors go into any given patient's response to acupuncture, including, but not limited to, the nature of the specific problem, how long it has been occurring, the overall health of the individual patient, and the severity of the problem. Thus, some patients feel a difference right away, while others may experience little change until having received a number of treatments. If you have been having headaches for a long time, you may need to have five or six treatments before you experience a change.

Richard Mandell, Lic.Ac.
Licensed Acupuncturist
Brookline Community Acupuncture
www.brooklinecommunityacupuncture.com

Every case is different so it can be hard to say. With pain, we usually see relatively quick results but the longer you have been suffering from something they longer it can take to resolve. Acupuncture is a natural medicine that works with the body’s natural energy and ability to heal, if you’ve been suffering from something for months, it’s reasonable for it to take weeks to resolve. If you’ve been suffering for years, think months. 12 sessions is a fairly average course of treatment for most issues, I always ask my patients to give me at least 4-6 sessions to make progress, especially if it is a complex case or prolonged course of illness. Hope that helps!

Rebecca M H Kitzerow, LAc

All Ways Well, LLC
www.allwayswell.com
allwayswell@mac.com
T./F. 360/952-3074
Cell 503/267-5570

Hi, this is Yoonsun Lee (L.Ac, K.M.D.)

Most of the effects of acupuncture treatment would appear right away or at least in a day. And it will gradually get better by repeating ups and downs or without it.
But the older the symptoms you have, the longer it will take to get treated.

I hope this could be a sufficient answer to your question.
Thank you.

Most people feel some type of relief after 3-5 , you can talk to your practitioner about adjusting the treatments as there are many ways to treat migraines with acupuncture

I see patients twice a week and sometimes it takes 4 or 5 treatments to start getting relief. The longer you have suffered from a condition the longer it takes for acupuncture to undo the problem. Remember, we are working on the cause, not just the symptoms, so it takes a bit for the body to heal. But if, after 5 or 6 treatments you still have had no relief, you might want to seek out another practitioner. Each of us has our own approach to a problem, and one person's may be more effective for your issues than another. Good luck and keep trying. Give it time.

This answer depends on the severity and duration of the condition being treated. The more long term the condition, the longer it will take to treat.

Usually you feel better during the session or after treatment. In your case, I think the doctor is not a good one, I suggest you not go see that acupuncturist.

You should feel better after the first treatment, at least an improvement of your situation.

I'm a pain management specialist. Typically my patients are noticing at least a reduction in pain within 24 hours of their first treatment. Not every provider gets those kinds of results, but generally by treatment two or three most folks will have the pain trending downward. Since you're at treatment 2 and not noticing anything yet, there are a few possibilities:

1. Your provider missed something during diagnosis and that has thrown their working hypothesis off. It happens a lot, Chinese medicine is looking at the body systemically and that means we're interested in *all* a patients symptoms, not just the symptoms that seem related to the issue at hand. I've had a lot of cases where it didn't feel like the treatments were getting anywhere then, out of the blue, the patient will mention some weird symptom that they didn't think was related but was actually the missing piece to the puzzle for me. Make sure your provider has the full picture of your presentation. If they didn't ask any questions about your health outside what's specifically going on with your headache, then see point #2.

2. Acupuncture, particularly in the US, is in a weird position at the moment. It's one of the only medical specialties that can often be practiced by other providers who have little to no actual training in the modality. Imagine if a podiatrist woke up one morning, decided to be a neurosurgeon, and there was nothing technically stopping them from doing that and you are getting the picture. Chinese medical school is a graduate level degree with most master's programs running 3-4 years and doctorates running 4-5. In many states a chiropractor can offer 'acupuncture' after 100 hours of training and physical therapists can often 'dry needle' with around 60 hours of training. This is a fraction the training of the average board certified, state licensed acupuncturist. Chiros and PTs mean well, and there is often nothing at the state level that prevents them from offering this service. From a patient perspective, though, it's a problem. As a patient, you want the person best suited to address your issue, and for acupuncture that's a board certified, state licensed acupuncturist - not a DC or a PT. You want someone with an NCCAOM national credential and an L.Ac. or R.Ac. credential issued by the state, anyone else is a crapshoot in terms of their ability to successfully apply acupuncture/Chinese medicine to your issue.

3. Lastly, and we don't really understand why this is, but statistically about 5% of people do not respond to acupuncture. Ever. Doesn't matter what provider they see or how many times they go, acupuncture doesn't produce results for them. If I were you, I'd try a 2-3 more treatments, making sure you're seeing an actual licensed acupuncturist (not a chiropractor or physical therapist), and if you're still not getting results you may be in that 5% group - unfortunately.