Hey everyone, I wanted to write about my acupuncture experience because I think it might help a lot of people who want to be or are in the fire service and are training/rehabilitating from past or current injuries. This is long, but for those interested it might be very worthwhile.

Acupuncture is the medical art of sticking needles into the human body to help heal injuries. This freaks people out, but I'm going to use my own story to emphasize how effective this treatment can be.

I played for the UCSD Men's Soccer team all my 4 years at college. My senior year as I was preparing for my EMT class and pursuing a career in firefighting after college, I was in a game and tore half of my rectus femoris, a major muscle in your thigh critical to doing pretty much any physical activity. You could've taken a quarter and literally made it sink into my thigh where the muscle had been ripped apart. I thought I was sunk, it was an extreme muscle tear. Then my trainers referred me to the acupuncterists and they went to work. There are a variety of techniques they can use, and it took a month with about 8 treatments, but the end result is that my quad has completely healed. I squat 250lbs, leg press 450lbs, and run just as well as I did before the pull. Most people would build up so much scar tissue that if they continued to do physical activity after healing they would just end up pulling the muscle again and again.

Please don't misunderstand however, acupuncture does not magically heal the body, it accelerates the healing process and allows your body to heal properly without the build-up of scar tissue. It would've taken me months to heal on my own. There are a lot of other details I could provide, but I don't want to make this too long. The reason why most people have never heard of or never consider acupuncture is because it is not mainsteam medicine, therefore most doctors don't recommend it. This is unfortunate because it could do great things for people with injuries.

While some people report no change after acupuncture, a very large majority including myself experience good results. Hope this helps someone. If anyone has any questions about this, just post here or you can PM me if you want. :)
This message was edited by ldrussel on 9-18-05 @ 8:21 PM