Muscle & joint complaints
Acupuncture for osteoarthritis & joint pain
Painful or stiff joints can significantly restrict your daily life. Getting up, climbing stairs, or simply making a movement that used to be effortless can suddenly cause discomfort. Acupuncture can be utilized to reduce pain and stiffness, helping you move as smoothly as possible again.
Recognition: Pain, stiffness, and restricted mobility
Osteoarthritis is a common cause of joint complaints, gradually altering the cartilage and structure of the joint. This often leads to pain, morning stiffness, and reduced mobility. However, joint complaints can equally arise from physical overload, a previous injury, or prolonged imbalance.
Symptoms can manifest in various joints: knees, hips, hands, fingers, shoulders, or the spine. When a joint hurts, you often unconsciously adapt your movements to compensate. This creates additional muscle tension around the joint, causing symptoms to accumulate and making movement increasingly difficult.
Traditional Chinese Medicine
How does acupuncture view joint complaints?
Within Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), joint complaints are often viewed as a stagnation in the flow of Qi and Blood within the meridians (known as Bi-syndrome). External factors frequently play a role. Depending on your symptom pattern, we may distinguish:
Cold and Dampness
Stiffness and pain that noticeably increase during cold or damp weather. The joints feel rigid and heavy, and often respond exceptionally well to warming treatments (like moxibustion).
Heat and Inflammation
The joint feels warm, swollen, and painful. This typically indicates an active inflammatory response where local circulation is completely blocked, and cooling the area is desired.
Chronic Stagnation and Deficiency
A dull, aching pain that has been present in the same location for a long time, often combined with general fatigue or a reduced physical resilience.
What to expect from the treatment?
The goal of the treatment is not to reverse osteoarthritis (worn cartilage cannot be restored), but to make the symptoms more manageable and ease your daily functioning. The treatment focuses on:
- 01An extensive personal intake where we look beyond just the painful joint, evaluating your complete symptom picture and factors affecting your mobility.
- 02Acupuncture using ultra-fine needles to dampen local pain and sensitivity, stimulating blood flow in and around the joint.
- 03Reducing muscle tension around the joint (for example, via cupping) to release compensatory tightness.
- 04Application of gentle heat therapy (moxa) when your joints feel particularly stiff and cold.
Prefer no needles?
Every treatment can also be carried out completely needle-free with laser acupuncture, in which the same points are treated with therapeutic laser light. Ear acupuncture is always carried out with the laser. Acupressure, which also uses no needles, can be used as well.
Frequently Asked Questions
What might I experience after a treatment?
Experiences vary per individual. Some notice the sharp pain becomes less prominent or that moving immediately feels easier. Others primarily experience deep relaxation in the muscles surrounding the painful area. Even if the pain doesn't disappear entirely, a slight reduction can make a massive difference in daily activities like climbing stairs or standing up.
Is acupuncture painful on a highly sensitive joint?
No. With severely painful or inflamed joints, we do not need to insert needles directly into the painful spot. Instead, we frequently use distal acupuncture points (elsewhere on the body along the same meridian) to gently regulate the energy flow in the affected area.
Personal Treatment Plan
Less pain, more freedom of movement?
At Bai Kang, we look at your complete symptom picture. During the intake, we discuss your complaints, what influences them, and how we can best support your mobility.