Acupuncture therapy in case of children's asthma

Asthma is a chronic pulmonary disorder that affects millions of people all over the world. Its treatment with the use of medicines is usually long term, even lifetime. With such prolonged use of synthetic drugs, long term side-effects and organ failure are inevitable especially with very young children. The cure may actually lead to more problems in the body. Alternative medicine gives hope for a drug free and side-effect free solution to this condition.

Children with asthma who undergo Acupuncture therapy may have it done at any age. Because of the numerous side-effects of prolonged use of synthetic medicine for chronic conditions such as asthma, many would rather go with alternative methods of controlling or even completely eradicating this condition. Acupuncture, the ancient art of healing with needles, offers asthmatics hope of controlling their condition without any side-effects because this method does not make use of drugs to cure.

Using small and very thin needles, Acupuncture is basically a method of stimulating electrical impulses through the body at certain key points to affect healing in diseased or affected areas. This method is documented to relieve pain and has therapeutic effects.

Although children, like most adults, may not take favorably to the idea of having needles inserted into them, repeated sessions and familiarity with the acupuncturist usually helps them overcome this fear. As with most chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, asthma with acupuncture therapy takes some time to control.

Good diet and exercise are usually recommended in conjunction with this therapy. Also, alternative medications such as herbal remedies and aromatherapy may also be prescribed. In this respect, it is better to seek the services of a western trained medical doctor who specializes in acupuncture for purposes of diagnosis and treatment. It is risky to say the least to subject your child to someone who does not understand the full extent of this condition as he may use methods or prescribe treatment and medication that might cause further damage or complication this condition. Natural or alternative medicine could be potentially dangerous if used the wrong way.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) under which Acupuncture is categorized, the condition called asthma can be caused by different things:

Each cause has corresponding treatments (points, herbal medicine) and length of treatment. Treatment time may be as long as 6 to 10 weeks with visits of only once a week for 1 to 2 hours a day.

As with most chronic conditions such as cancer in western medicine, Asthma in TCM has a remission stage after a period of treatment has been implemented. Patients in remission stage show no signs of asthma symptoms such as wheezing and trouble or difficulty breathing. Although there are no longer any outward manifestations that the patient is asthmatic, treatment may still go on for at least another 6 months.

Because asthma can be triggered at any moment, acupuncturists do not normally recommend complete eradication of control medicines. Rather, a gradual lowering of dosage and frequency may be recommended until finally, acupuncture completely takes over.