Has anyone tried accupuncture to relieve pain on court? Was it effective? I have a problem with a nerve at the moment - not a sports injury, but flares up when I play/train and is hindering my performance. Someone has suggested chinese accupuncture so I am wondering if anyone has any thought on this?
Acupuncture is very effective. My father had suffer from wrist and forearm pain for over 2 years and because of that, he's forced to stop playing badminton. He even has problem lifting slightly heavy object with his right hand. About 6 months ago, he had acupuncture and the weird thing is, the needle was inserted at his ear, but anyway, the moment the needle is inserted, my father was able to freely move his arm without any pain and since then, we've done plenty of heavy lifting and badminton plays that he still doesn't feel any pain. It sounds miraculous and I am still amazed at how well it worked.
I was sceptical about acupuncture until I received treatment a few years ago. No physio or specialist scans could find what the source of pain was when I locked out my elbow (during overhead b/h clears in particular). I went to Don Gatherer, the ex-England rugby physio, who after trying most other things asked if I'd agree to acupuncture. I'm glad I did because 2 days later the pain had entirely disappeared and there has never been a recurrence since. Seems unbelievable, but I became a convert and am a testament to the fact that it really can work! The treatment is harmless anyway so there's nothing to lose except for the modest fee - and you are worth it, aren't you?
I just want to add in a little things about accupuncture since my father is a western doctor and he performs accupuncture as well. From a western doctor's point of view, when the muscle is injured, it will get tensed up and constantly spasm, that's why you feel "tight" at where your injure your muscle. Accupuncture can relief that spasm and tightness. But I don't think all accupuncture doctor were as good as they claim to be. An easy way to tell is how many needle does he/she use. A good accupuncture doctor can pinpoint the problem and use few needles only. If the doctor uses like 10+ needles, most likely he doesn't know what he is doing, he is bound to get lucky when he use that many needles. Good luck to everyone and stay out of injuries!
Not to undermine the merit of Chinese Acccupuncture. If you take pain killer, you would be able to perform miracle as well, although the effect is short-lived. My question is: Do those needles really cure anything? (What exactly has/have been cured?) The original symptoms sound familiar to me, and sound like inflammation at the joint (like Tennis elbow?). If what the needle does is to kill the nerve at that part of your body, presumably you may never feel any pain any more . But the "problem" (e.g. inflammation) may still be there. Of course, this is just my wild guess. I'm just playing Devil's Advocate
Of course, if you're injured, you need to rest. But I think what bother most of the people is that they're not able to cure even after they rest for a long time. Like I said, after serious injury, muscle will stay in a spasm state and that's why you feel tight. Finding out where the spasm is and the accupuncture acutally can release the spasm. My father is a western trained doctor and practice western medicine for a long time. He learned accupuncture and study it with anatomy so it is very effective. I personally benefit from it when I was training for badminton, he also helped a lot of people with back pain, heel pain and other type of long term muscle problems. But he is practicing in Taiwan so I can only get it when he comes back now.
