Eastern medicine seeks to support and maintain a person's total well-being.
The human body is inherently endowed with a homeostatic mechanism to help it stay healthy. Any disorder, intrinsic or extrinsic, will be addressed by the body's natural healing power, in a process that ideally leads to the complete restoration of health. There are cases, however, when the severity of the problem exceeds the body's self-healing capacity, with the result that the patient cannot expect any major recovery to take place while he or she is staying in bed.
Acupuncture is a form of medical intervention that seeks to accelerate the natural recovery process by boosting the body's innate healing abilities. It also helps keep neural and hormonal systems from getting out of balance while improving blood circulation, thereby enhancing immunity and resistance to diseases.
The human body can be likened to an electrical circuit, whose fuses correspond to acupoints. In acupuncture treatment, the practitioner replaces blown fuses with new ones to get electricity flowing again, so to speak, restoring and revitalizing body functions and relieving symptoms.
With a patient suffering lower back pain or shoulder stiffness, for example, the acupuncturist uses needling stimulation to trigger the production and release of endorphins, the body's natural pain-relieving hormones, facilitate blood circulation, and promote excretion of uric acid, one of the body's waste products responsible for muscle pain, achieving the relief of nerve pressure and the elimination of the painful symptom.

The length and thickness of the needles used in treatment are determined based on the nature of the patient's symptom and the location of the body to be treated. In most cases, however, we use two-inch-long stainless needles (we also have silver and gold needles, which we may use when appropriate or when requested by patients). The idea of having metal objects stick into your body may seem scary, but the needles used in acupuncture are of extremely thin types that can hardly cause any pain. Rather, patients often feel a pleasant, refreshing sensation when a needle has been inserted into an acupoint on their bodies.
On the other hand, there are cases when a patient feels mild fatigue or dullness/heaviness after a treatment. Called "Mengen" in Eastern medicine, this is a temporary state of discomfort that arises in reaction to acupuncture needling and passes before the body begins to regain full health.
You may choose the thickness of the needles to be used for your treatment. Please tell your therapist if you have any preferences.