By: Billy
http://www.zenohs.com ©2009
There have been many misconceptions about acupuncture that many people in the Western world have inferred. When I see and hear all of these misconceptions, it causes me to start rolling my eyes in disbelief. So it is time to set the record straight.
The first misconception is that it is used for dealing only with stress. Now this statement is misleading because while certain people do use it for stress, it is not the only reason. We do look at stress as being the cause of some diseases but not all of them. If you look at certain diseases such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome, the root cause is stress. However, certain conditions that acupuncture can treat such as sinusitis or diabetes, the root cause is not stress obviously. Usually the cause of certain diseases can be environmental, genetic, dietary, or psychological. Another misconception that caught my attention a couple of years ago was on Oprah Winfrey's talk show with Dr. Oz. The subject on her show was about acupuncture and the acupuncturist treating Oprah was asked, "Do you need to be sick in order to receiving acupuncture?" The practitioner's answer was, "no." Now, I find this to be not only a misconception but a dangerous answer to give because there are cases from
Next is the subject of health insurance covering acupuncture treatments is another misconception. Health insurance companies are only going to cover diseases treated with acupuncture by a medical doctor who is a certified acupuncturist. I must say again that medical doctors practicing acupuncture have only three-hundred hours of acupuncture training. Whereas, licensed acupuncturists are not covered by health insurance companies despite having two-thousand hours of training than certified doctors practicing acupuncture.
Lastly, a misconception is that acupuncture is considered unscientific by the Western allopathic community. Furthermore is that they feel that acupuncture is more of a mystical, intuitive, and an exotic art form of medicine. The misconception of East Asian medicine being unscientific is also based on false postcolonial assumptions that date back to the 18th and 19th centuries regarding Eastern cultures by European imperialists according to Edward Said, the author of Orientalism. What people fail to realize is that the Western medical viewpoint grows out of the scientific model. The majority of individuals unfortunately fail to realize that science is a point of view without any more purchase on truth than the world views. This gives Western medicine an air of certainty which it does not necessarily deserve anymore than acupuncture and East Asian Medicine does.
This concludes some of the many misconceptions about East Asian Medicine that have been circulating within the country.
Billy Shonez Singh is a licensed acupuncturist and board certified Chinese herbalist by the NCCAOM. He is currently practicing in Westbury, NY. His primary focus with East Asian Medicine is stress, pain management, diabetic complications, and treating chemotherapy side-effects.
