Acupuncture for the Flu
The flu is a common viral infection that can have the potential to be deadly. According to CDC, influenza has led to between 9 million and 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 and 61,000 deaths in the US every year since 2010.
While you’re less likely to catch the flu than you are a common cold, it’s thought that 5% to 20% of the US population are infected by the flu every year. Influenza symptoms don’t differ much from those of a cold – fever, cough, sore throat, headaches, fatigue, stuffy nose – but flu has a much higher risk of leading to severe illness, like pneumonia, or even death.
The flu is currently prevented with an annual vaccine, but it doesn’t work equally well in all people, and only protects against four strains of the flu virus. Flu symptoms are treated with basic pain-relieving medications, which only offer short-term relief.
A far more effective treatment solution for banishing all flu symptoms in one is acupuncture. This holistic therapy is can not only treat the symptoms of flu, but prevent you from falling ill with the flu in the first place.
How Acupuncture for Flu Works
Acupuncture for the flu works to target the common symptoms of flu, including raised temperature, pulse and blood pressure. It can also be used to treat respiratory complications and infections resulting from the flu.
During an acupuncture session for the flu, a therapist will insert needles into various pressure points around the body, including the outside of the bridge of the nose, the skin between the thumb and forefinger, the inner side of the elbow joint, and the upper back between the shoulder blades.
Acupuncture doesn’t just relieve flu symptoms; it also helps to strengthen the body’s self-healing system, which increases your ability to fight off infections. If your immune system is compromised or weakened, causing you to fall sick with the flu more frequently, acupuncture offers long-term protection against illness.
Proven Benefits of Acupuncture for Flu
There are numerous benefits of acupuncture for flu, as proven by recent medical and scientific studies.
One report found that acupuncture is effective when used to treat the patient and not the symptom, helping to improve overall health and lower the likelihood of falling ill with flu. It concluded that the regulatory effects of certain forms of acupuncture were responsible for this.
Another study looked at using alternative medical systems like acupuncture on children, and found that flu vaccine update was much lower in the children who were receiving these therapies than in those who just took multivitamins.
The Future of Acupuncture for Flu
Using acupuncture for the flu offers a completely different approach to treatment. As we can use acupuncture to regulate our bodies and strengthen our immune response, it will only continue to prove a popular remedy for improving overall health and greatly reducing flu outbreak.