Acupuncture is a method of curing sickness that began in China possibly as long ago as 3000 B.C. It is established on the idea that there is a neural link between the organs of the body and some particular areas on the body's surface. Sensitivity in any of these areas, codified long ago as acupuncture points, indicate the existence of disease. In current practice, stainless steel needles as thin as hairs are inserted at these predetermined points - no way identical with the source of the pain -and turned very quickly by hand or by electrical current. The needles may be left in place for only a few seconds or for as long as five minutes. Because they are inserted only a few millimeters into the skin, the process is not painful.

The customary Chinese explanation for the helpfulness of acupuncture can be summed up as follows: The hundreds of acupuncture points are classified into twelve groups, and the points that are part of one of these twelve groups are connected by an imaginary line on the outside of the body. This line is called a meridian. The twelve most important meridians control most of the body's organs. The body's life forces are said to flow along these meridians, and all diseases are credited to a disturbance in this process. The rotating needles are presumed to release energy that has been obstructed, thus restoring the body's recuperative balance.

Although there is no indisputable scientific evidence to confirm the physiological presence of acupoints or meridians, several important research efforts into the nature and mechanism of pain have pointed out the there is a surprisingly high degree of correlation between acupuncture points and the trigger points for pain. Although the acupuncture points were discovered and labeled centuries ago, and the trigger points as recently as the 1970s, many researchers believe that they represent the same phenomenon, explainable by an fundamental process of the nervous system.

Several decades ago, investigators into what makes acupuncture work as a treatment for pain proposed that the action of the needles stirred the release of endorphins. It has also been suggested that acupuncture activates a particular part of the brain that has a strong inhibitory command over the pathways along which pain signals are transmitted.

While acupuncture has been attaining some success as a treatment for addiction to nicotine and other drugs, there is little doubt about its success in easing pain originating in a variety of conditions. Success rates in cases where other methods have failed, or where patients prefer not to be treated with strong medications, range from fifty to eighty percent. Facial pain (trigeminal neuralgia), low back pain, some types of arthritis, tension headaches, dysmenorrhea, and post herpetic neuralgia (the acute pain that follows a shingles attack) are among the conditions in which varying degrees of success have been reported. Because acupuncture is an invasive procedure, it is extremely essential to look for a well-qualified practitioner, preferably a doctor who uses disposable needles rather than needles that are cleaned and used again.