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Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an important part of our vision to help you live a healthy life with a fit body. Acupuncture at Redefined Health combines the traditional Chinese medicine approach with Western sports medicine protocols. First, we perform an orthopedic evaluation to find the cause of your pain or injury. We then look at how the pain or injury affects how your body moves and holds itself in certain postures. Once we complete this assessment, we use very fine, sterile, disposable needles to stimulate healing, correct postural imbalances and encourage the body to correct itself back to health.

In sports acupuncture, we focus on motor points. At each of these points, the motor nerve innervates a muscle and there is the least resistance to conductivity. Every muscle has at least one nerve that innervates it, and some have two. By using a needle to stimulate these motor nerves, we get a fasciculation, a brief contraction that affects a small number of muscle fibres. Essentially, this is how a muscle resets itself and resumes its normal function. It feels like an involuntary twitch, which can be slightly uncomfortable. Once this happens, the peripheral nervous system sends information about the problem of the muscle back to the CNS (brain and spinal cord). Whether the problem is pain, tightness, inflammation, poor activation or firing, the motor nerve relays that information.  Once the body is made aware of the problem, it cues itself to correct itself. Here’s another way to think about it: imagine if you got a sliver in your finger. At first, you would see redness around the area from increased blood flow. Then, the body would find a way to expel the foreign object, which would activate the endocrine system and immune system. In other words, the body would increase white blood cells and the histamine response at the site of injury – all in order to correct itself.

Both motor points and trigger points may be involved in areas of pain. Trigger points are hypersensitive nodules that develop in characteristic sites of strained muscles. Motor points and trigger points may also present because of internal organ pathology, such as digestive disorders, anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular and circulatory disease.  All internal organs are innervated by a branch of the nerve that exits out of each spinal segment, which is why acupuncture can be used to treat internal disease, as well as pain.

Acupuncture needles can also be inserted into joint spaces, which relieves inflammation and pain at these sights. This can help osteoarthritis, as well as ligament, tendon, meniscus and labrum tears.

At Redefined Health, we use various needling techniques, cupping, guasha and electro-stimulation as part of treatment.

Acupuncture is recognized by the World Health Organization as the primary modality for treating a variety of disorders. Please see attached for the World Health Organization’s findings. In summary, acupuncture has existed for more than 3,000 years and has stood the test of time as an effective treatment option.

Practitioners at Redefined Health who provide acupuncture include:

Pamela Denis, Registered Acupuncturist

Full Service Edmonton Health & Wellness Clinic. Serving Glenora, Oliver, West Edmonton & Downtown *just off Jasper Avenue on 124 St – free parking

It is our vision to empower individuals and families in our communities to restore and maintain optimum health. We know that clarity fuels momentum to health and that alignment within your mind, body, and purpose fosters human excellence.