Keep those hot flushes at bay with acupuncture!
Acupuncture is back in the news again. We already know that it can be hugely helpful for pain relief and in fertility treatment, but this week the Daily Mail highlighted some exciting research showing that the therapy can help alleviate the misery of menopausal hot flushes and the dreaded night sweats.
Led by the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina, the research actually constituted a review of various studies and scientific papers, including the most recent study in 2016 among 209 women in the US. Encouragingly, it has concluded that acupuncture can reduce both the frequency and severity of hot flushes for up to a year.
In case you have never experienced a hot flush (and, believe me, you’ll know when you have!) it is a sudden feeling of heat that suffuses some or all of the body. Sufferers may also experience sweating, flushing in the face and a momentary rapid or irregular heartbeat. Hot flushes can occur sporadically or very frequently – some women experience up to 20 per day – while night sweats can lead to serious sleep deprivation. Overall, these symptoms thoroughly undermine wellbeing and overall quality of life.
They are caused by a drop in oestrogen, the female reproductive hormone, which helps regulate body temperature. Over time, with less need to release eggs, the body produces less oestrogen, causing body temperature to fluctuate. It is thought that acupuncture works by allowing the brain to compensate for the reduction of oestrogen, balance the body’s temperature and ‘reset the thermostat’.
In my practice, I use acupuncture in combination with osteopathy, and have treated menopausal patients very safely and successfully, reducing and, in some cases eliminating, their most troublesome symptoms. If you would like more information on how I use acupuncture or to read some testimonials from symptom-free customers, please click here, or to make an appointment please contact me.
