Acupuncture for Bronchitis

A lot of the ancient cultures in East Asia have been using the ancient healing art of acupuncture for thousands of years.  It has been practiced in Europe for hundreds of years while in the United States, it has been growing in popularity for more than 40 years now. People who don’t know what acupuncture is may find this therapy strange since it involves pricking needles in a patient to treat a health condition such as bronchitis.

The Two Schools Of Thought of Acupuncture

The two predominant schools of thought of acupuncture are traditional acupuncture and medical acupuncture. The former is a healing system that has been practiced for millennia in East Asia while the latter is widely being utilized by doctors trained in western medicine. Traditional acupuncture believes that needles inserted into specific acupuncture points are associated to different parts of the body where meridians or energy vessels lie.

Traditional acupuncturists believe that energy or qi circulates along 12 meridians in the body and if the circulation slows down, disease can develop. Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) use unique diagnostic tools to diagnose a patient and often utilize acupuncture to commence the treatment, eventually augmenting the treatment with herbs.

Medical acupuncture practitioners, on the other hand, argue that the needles activate the central nervous system of the patient. This causes the nervous system to produce chemicals and hormones.

Acupuncture Therapy for Bronchitis

Acupuncture therapy has actually been proven to treat bronchitis. Moreover, it can improve the function of your lungs and prevent recurrences of future bronchitis attacks.

What Is Bronchitis?

The bronchi are the primary airways of the lungs.  When they become infected, the bronchi become irritated and inflamed causing the condition known as bronchitis – its main symptom is a hacking cough. In certain instances, the cough comes with gray-yellowish mucus.

The TCM View of Bronchitis

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners think that bronchitis is due to either external or internal pathogenic factors.

External pathogenic factors can also be considered as seasonal pathogens while internal factors originate from internal organ problems.  Basically, acute bronchitis is caused by external factors while chronic bronchitis comes from internal factors.

Treating Bronchitis with Acupuncture

The majority of bronchitis cases can be easily managed at home although no cure is still available for chronic bronchitis.

The benefits of acupuncture in helping to treat bronchitis include its ability to strengthen the immune system helping to restore balance to the patient’s entire health system. Besides this, the function of the Lung is also reinforced.  After the entire treatment plan is accomplished, these elements become stronger and more balanced which means that the probability of recurrence of bronchitis is almost zero.

Acupuncture treatments lessen the patient’s sensitivity to irritants (chemical or physical factors), decrease congestion and reduce inflammation of secretions.

The treatment plan may depend on the diagnosis of the patient. The plan may differ from person to person due to physiology, symptoms and other factors. Treatment for acute bronchitis usually entails just a few sessions; chronic bronchitis, on the other hand may need around 10 to 15 sessions of acupuncture treatment.