Needle manipulation

Comment by Chad J. Dupuis, L.Ac.

Personally, except in very specific cases (acute trauma in particular but there are others) I find it completely unnecessary, possibly causing unnecessary trauma to the patient and/or tissue and very likely limiting results by eliciting a fight or flight response. The question really is “does the needle do the work?” - or - “does the body do the work as a response?”. If the body just needs to be stimulated, then even needling will be just fine. If you are in the other camp, then perhaps some manipulation is important.

A general walk through Japanese acupuncture techniques guides one to think manipulation is probably counterproductive.

Comment by Archived User

Here is a study that does suggest there are actual physiological differences in response to different manipulation techniques. However given that 1) it’s only an abstract translated from Chinese and 2) it was done on rats it might not be all that applicable to actual human clinical settings.

From a practitioner perspective it comes down to how you are trained and what you are comfortable doing. From a patient perspective most people will prefer feeling less.