Appreciating acupuncture

Letters to the editor - Editor:

Dr. Desmond Colohan's dedicated commitment in the service of chronic pain sufferers in Prince Edward Island is to be applauded. But his recent mischaracterization of acupuncture cannot go uncorrected by me or the association I represent.

In his June 23 commentary, Dr. Colohan lumped acupuncture in a catch-all bucket with cortisone injections, ultrasound, nerve blocks and laser therapy as 'physical therapy'. This reflects a widespread untruth and a therapeutic ghetto into which many health-care professionals seem hell-bent on placing acupuncture. This is because most acupuncture in P.E.I. is delivered by physiotherapists and chiropractors who are only trained to treat musculoskeletal complaints.

If you have received acupuncture from the very few of us in the province who are fully trained in Classical Acupuncture, you already appreciate the full breadth and depth of acupuncture's usefulness. Acupuncture is not mere 'physical therapy' on par with nerve blocks and ultrasound. It is a highly sophisticated broad spectrum medical art. For example, I routinely and successfully treat patients for a whole host of health problems related to hormonal regulation, organ function, mental/emotional problems and compromised immune function. Acupuncture, when provided by a fully trained professional, is about much more than neck pain and back pain.

While modern medicine has only recently realized that most of your body systems are interconnected (the basis for the new field of psychoneuroimmunology), Chinese Medicine has recognized this for centuries. Professionally administered Classical Acupuncture is the therapy par excellence for integrating the full web of physiological and anatomical interrelationships that, despite all the talk of holistic health care, are still treated separately by modern medicine. If and when this is ever fully appreciated and brought from the margins and back alleys of medicine into the mainstream, medical care would undergo a dramatic change for the better.

Most Italian food in P.E.I. is served up in the form of pizza and spaghetti. That does not mean Italian food is just pizza and spaghetti. Anyone who has ever dined at a gourmet Italian restaurant knows it is much more than that. Most acupuncture in P.E.I. is served up as a 'pain management' technique for neck pain and back pain. Anyone who has ever received treatment from a professional classically trained acupuncturist knows it is so much more than that.

Daniel Schulman,

chairperson,

Association of Registered Acupuncturists of Prince Edward Island