How Acupuncture Treats Lyme Disease

Mar 21

It’s one time you don’t want to hit the bull’s-eye.

If you develop a rash that looks like a bull’s-eye, you may have contracted Lyme disease. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks. Ticks in all forms are icky. Nothing makes you squirm like feeling one crawling up your leg. The deer tick is particularly nasty—it’s the critter that carries Lyme disease. Even worse, they’re hard to spot; when you’re having fun in the great outdoors, it’s easy to overlook something no bigger than the head of a pin.

Lyme disease is a serious illness that can result in chronic pain. In more serious cases, it causes inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. This season has proven to be particularly nasty with a lot of cases of Lyme disease.

What is Lyme disease and what are the symptoms of Lyme disease?

Did you know that Lyme disease was named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut? Aren’t we lucky to have this as one of our state’s claims to fame?

All joking aside, Lyme disease is caused by a particularly devious, corkscrew-shaped bacteria called a spirochete.

It causes:

Fever
Fatigue
Headache
Chills
Achy muscles and joints

If it’s not treated early, the later stages of the disease present more serious symptoms such as:

Severe headaches
Muscle stiffness
Arthritis pain
Dizziness
Facial palsy, which causes one side of the face to droop
Irregular heartbeat

The later stage of Lyme diseases feature extensive, chronic pain in joints, nerves, bones and tendons.

It’s vital to treat Lyme disease as soon as the earliest symptoms appear. You should always check yourself for ticks, particularly if you’ve spent time outdoors and traveled to a place where Lyme disease is prevalent. (You can view this map if you’re not sure where the latest outbreaks of Lyme disease have occurred.)

How can acupuncture treat Lyme disease?

Depending upon the severity of the disease, traditional Western treatment of antibiotics may be all that’s needed. However, this course of treatment doesn’t work for everyone. The disease also causes severe joint pain, and traditional treatments are limited to strong pain killers.

Acupuncture provides another option for those who don’t want to spend the rest of their lives on extensive — and possibly habit-forming — medication.

The philosophy behind acupuncture is simple. You body naturally wants to protect itself from infections and pathogens. Therefore, when your body comes into contact with one, it deflects it to less critical areas of your body.

This means that if you contract an illness, your body tries to “move” this illness away from your heart or lungs, causing the sickness to “settle” in other parts of your body such as joints and blood. This is one cause of chronic joint pain that results from Lyme disease.

If Lyme disease isn’t completely removed from your body, it may still remain “latent,” causing a relapse and return to the ongoing pain. Acupuncture is used to help reduce the inflammation in your body that are causing the pain, providing long-lasting relief.

At Connecticut Family Acupuncture, we often use Chinese herbal formulas to treat Lyme disease.

These formulas have been used for other diseases caused by spirochetes for hundreds or thousands of years, so they are a wonderful, natural treatment for Lyme disease.

Acupuncture has been used for centuries

It’s easy to forget that antibiotics are the “new kids on the block.” They were only developed around the turn of the 20th century, which isn’t long when you look at the vast expanse of world history. Acupuncture, on the other hand, is a Traditional Chinese Medicine that has been practiced for thousands of years, providing relief and effective treatment for centuries.

Acupuncture works by getting your body to produce all the good stuff that it’s supposed to produce under normal, healthy operation that keeps your body strong, healthy and functioning optimally. Things like your body’s own natural anti-inflammatory substances, painkillers, and immune cells. But not only does it get all that good stuff into your bloodstream, it opens up the flow of blood to areas that aren’t working the way they should be so that all that good stuff can get to where it needs to go.

If you’re concerned about spending the rest of your life on painkillers and want a natural solution, please contact us. We love showing our new and returning clients the incredible benefits of acupuncture.

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Connecticut Family Acupuncture is dedicated to helping as many people as possible realize their optimum health naturally, without the use of pharmaceutical or surgical interventions. We are committed to our patients and utilize our extensive knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine to address each individual’s health concerns. Connecticut Family Acupuncture has offices in Bolton. Contact us for more information or to schedule an appointment.

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