i get quite a few requests for people who are wanting to stop smoking or who want to lose weight with acupuncture.

as a rule, these are things that i do not treat by themselves.  if a patient is coming in just to lose weight, i don’t give a ‘weight loss’ treatment.  but i will incorporate ‘weight loss’ points into a treatment that is addressing other concerns.  so if a patient comes in with diarrhea, or acid reflux, or headaches or whatever, i will do points that will treat their symptoms and i’ll also throw in ‘weight loss’ points if the patient asks for them.  as long as weight loss is not the primary goal of the treatment i’ll do it.  same thing with smoking.

why, do you ask, do i not treat these two things as a primary goal?  because (and this may sound contradictory) i feel that the treatments both place too much responsibility on the part of the needles, as well as too much responsibility on the part of the patient.

how is that?  well, let’s take it one item at a time.  first, people are always looking for the quick fix.  the easy way out.  the one touch, one stop shop.  and their expectations are very high.  they feel that with a single treatment the cravings should be eliminated.  well, that’s not always true, and is quite often the case where it definitely isn’t true.  the needles will take time to do their thing.  several treatments.  in addition to that, and this leads me to the second point regarding patient responsibility, there must be behavioral changes within the patient in order for the treatments to work.  by that i mean that after treatment, the patient should do whatever he/she can to avoid situations where smoking (or eating) is encouraged.  don’t go to a smoky bar with friends.  if you do go with smoking friends, make sure that they are sympathetic to what you are trying to do and ask that they not smoke around you.  ask them to be encouraging of your new attitudinal change.  throw out whatever cigarettes that you have in your possession so that the temptation isn’t there.  otherwise you WILL fail.  and when you do fail it won’t be because the treatment didn’t work; it’ll be because you didn’t do your part.  but what will you tell the rest of the world?  you’ll say that the acupuncture didn’t work and you’ll take no responsibility.

this gives acupuncture a bad reputation and instead of feeding that bad reputation, i choose to not take part.  i choose to not even offer smoking cessation or weight loss programs for acupuncture.

signing off for now.