Acupuncture for Pain Relief: What Your Body’s Trying to Tell You
You’re probably reading this because something hurts.
Maybe it’s your back, your neck, or headaches that linger like unwelcome guests. Perhaps it’s a knee complaining since a fall three years ago, or joint pain that worsens whenever the weather shifts. You may have tried injections, anti-inflammatories, and physical therapy—all without relief, and you’re starting to wonder if this will always be your life.
It doesn’t have to be.
Before we talk about acupuncture, keep this in mind: pain is your body’s way of telling you something deeper is going on. It’s not just a mechanical issue. Paying attention to this message is the first step toward feeling better.
Pain Has a Story, and Chinese Medicine Listens
What I appreciate about Chinese medicine is that we don’t just ask where it hurts. We look deeper, asking how and whenit hurts, what makes it better, and what was happening in your life when it started. Our focus is on treating people, not just their diagnoses.
Sharp, stabbing, and fixed pain is often a sign of what we call Blood stasis. This is the kind of pain that sticks around after old injuries, surgeries, or accidents. It feels stuck because something in your body really is.
Dull, achy pain that responds to warmth and pressure usually points to Qi and Blood deficiency. Your body is working hard to nourish an area, but doesn’t quite have enough to go around.
Heavy, swollen, dragging pain that gets worse in damp weather points to Dampness. If you’ve ever felt like your joints were wrapped in wet cement after it rained, you know what this feels like. (Tan et al., 2023, pp. 1130-1135)
Tight, crampy pain that gets worse with stress is often a sign of Liver Qi stagnation. We often see this in people who carry a lot, holding tension in their jaw, shoulders, or chest, sometimes for years.
Where it hurts tells us something, too. Low back, knee, and ankle pain often involves the Kidney system, which governs our deepest reserves of vitality. Neck, shoulder, and jaw pain frequently runs along the Liver and Gallbladder meridians — particularly in people who are driven, high-achieving, and not great at letting go. One-sided pain often involves the Gallbladder channel. Pain that moves around points to Wind in the channels. (Zhong et al., 2009, pp. 259-263)
This isn’t guesswork. It’s a diagnostic approach that has been refined over thousands of years and now fits well with what modern neuroscience is learning about pain. (Kato et al., 2022)
What Western Research Says About Why Acupuncture Works
The research on acupuncture and pain has grown substantially over the past two decades, and it’s worth knowing what’s actually happening under the skin when those needles go in.
Acupuncture is well known for its ability to relieve pain. When needles are inserted, they trigger the release of your body’s natural painkillers(endogenous opioid peptides) and activate inhibitory circuits in the spinal cord that can block pain signals before they reach the brain. At the needle site, adenosine is released, directly reducing the sensation of pain. Acupuncture also helps lower inflammation, boost circulation, and relax tight muscles, contributing to both immediate and long-term pain relief.
But it goes deeper than that. Brain imaging studies have shown that acupuncture stimulation affects not only the sensory areas of the brain but also the limbic system — the regions involved in emotion, memory, and the stress response. Acupuncture has been shown to deactivate parts of the limbic system, increase endorphin binding in emotion-processing areas, and drive neuroplastic changes that interrupt the central sensitization that keeps chronic pain stuck in place. (Fang et al., 2009, pp. 1196-1206)
Acupuncture addresses not just physical symptoms but deeper patterns in the nervous system that maintain pain. This holistic approach targets the true roots of chronic pain. (Cabioglu & Surucu, 2009, pp. 3-11)
The Part We Don’t Talk About Enough: Stress, Trauma, and Pain
Here is something I wish more people knew before they came to see us — and something that conventional medicine still struggles to address well.
Emotional stress and unresolved trauma can cause pain. Not metaphorically. Physiologically.
When you experience something frightening, overwhelming, or deeply stressful, your nervous system activates a survival response: fight, flight, or freeze. Stress hormones flood your system, muscles brace, and your pain sensitivity increases. In acute situations, this is adaptive. But when the stress becomes chronic, or when trauma goes unprocessed, the nervous system can get stuck in that heightened state — and the body pays the price.
Research has shown that people with PTSD and a history of trauma have measurably increased central sensitization, meaning their nervous systems are more reactive to pain signals across the board. Chronic pain and PTSD frequently co-occur, and they reinforce each other: pain is traumatizing, and trauma amplifies pain. The same brain structures involved in processing fear — the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis — are also central to how we process physical pain.
Childhood adversity, emotional stress, grief, years of working in a high-pressure environment, a car accident that “wasn’t that bad” — any of these can leave a mark on the nervous system that eventually shows up as physical pain. People sometimes come to us with back pain that began right around a divorce, or migraines that started after a job loss, or neck pain that seems correlated entirely with stress levels. This is not a coincidence, and it is not “in your head.” It’s in your nervous system — and that is treatable. (Berens et al., 2017)
Bessel van der Kolk, whose research on trauma has been foundational in this field, writes that trauma survivors often experience the world through a different nervous system — one that is hypervigilant, dysregulated, and prone to physical symptoms including chronic pain, fatigue, and autoimmune reactivity. (Kolk, 2014)
Chinese medicine has always understood the body this way. The Liver system, in particular, governs the smooth flow of Qi throughout the body and is profoundly affected by emotional suppression, stress, and unresolved feelings. Liver Qi stagnation doesn’t just show up as irritability or PMS. It shows up as tight muscles, headaches, rib pain, and jaw tension. The emotions and the body are one system, not two.
Acupuncture’s reach into the limbic system is part of why it can be so effective for this kind of pain. A 2024 randomized clinical trial published in JAMA Psychiatry found that acupuncture produced clinically meaningful reductions in PTSD symptoms in combat veterans, including enhanced extinction of learned fear responses. Research from China found that acupuncture outperformed pharmacotherapy in improving PTSD symptom scores. The mechanism being studied involves acupuncture’s ability to regulate the stress response system, calm the amygdala, and support nervous system regulation, allowing the body to move out of survival mode.
If your pain has been labeled 'stress-related,' know it reflects a true biological mechanism. This is a real diagnosis that can be addressed effectively.h.
Herbal Medicine for Pain: What It Can Do That Acupuncture Can't Do Alone
Acupuncture is powerful — but it's one part of a much larger system. Chinese herbal medicine has been treating pain for just as long, and in many cases it's the piece that makes the difference between temporary relief and lasting change.
Here's why: acupuncture works in sessions. Herbs work around the clock. When someone comes in with chronic pain rooted in Blood stasis, Qi deficiency, or a nervous system that's been in overdrive for years, a well-chosen herbal formula continues that therapeutic work between appointments — nourishing what's depleted, moving what's stuck, and supporting the body's repair mechanisms while you sleep, work, and live your life.
For pain specifically, herbal formulas can target the same patterns we identify with acupuncture: formulas that invigorate Blood and break up stasis for that deep, fixed, old-injury pain; formulas that warm and move Qi for cold-type pain that tightens in winter; formulas that calm the Liver and ease the tight, stress-driven patterns that show up in the neck, shoulders, and jaw. For patients whose pain has a strong emotional or nervous system component, there are formulas that work directly on regulating the stress response — supporting adrenal function, calming the shen, and helping the nervous system find its way back to baseline.
This is also where telehealth becomes a genuinely viable option for pain care. If you're not local, or if life makes regular in-person visits difficult, we can work together remotely. A thorough intake — including your pain patterns, history, constitution, and what's been happening in your life — gives me enough to prescribe a targeted herbal protocol and check in with you regularly as we refine it. Many patients find that herbal medicine alone produces significant, meaningful relief, especially for chronic conditions that have been building for years. It's not a lesser version of care. For the right patient, it's exactly the right tool.
What Treatment at my Practice Looks Like
I've been practicing Chinese medicine for over 40 years, and pain — in all its forms — is one of the things I find most interesting to treat, precisely because it's rarely just one thing. Whether you're coming in person or working with me remotely, we'll start with a thorough intake: your pain patterns, your history, your constitution, and what's been happening in your life. From there, I build a treatment plan that fits you — not a protocol designed for your diagnosis.
In-person visits may include acupuncture, cupping, gua sha, moxa, and herbal prescriptions. Telehealth patients receive herbal formulas, dietary and lifestyle guidance, and ongoing support as we track your progress together.
Most people feel something shift early on. Lasting change takes time and consistency. The goal isn't just to turn down the volume on the pain — it's to address what's been generating it, so your body can do what it's designed to do: regulate, repair, and heal.
From Patients Who’ve Been Here
“They made a treatment plan for my back pain, and I’ve recovered completely after 5 sessions— C.J.
“I started coming for treatment about 5 months ago for some specific pain. I had noticeable relief from my pain well within my first few sessions.” — C.M.
“Acupuncture helped me when cortisone shots didn’t. I wish I had come in sooner.” — K.R.
Pain may shape your life, but it doesn’t have to define it.
Acupuncture can help you reclaim your story.
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Sources
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5. Hollifield M, et al. Acupuncture for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA Psychiatry, 2024. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2814938
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7. Natan M, et al. Memory-directed acupuncture as a neuromodulatory treatment for PTSD. Translational Psychiatry, 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-022-01876-3
8. VA National Center for PTSD. Chronic Pain and PTSD.https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/chronic_pain_guide.asp
9. Renna ME, et al. Pain, Stress, and Emotions: Uncontrolled trial of a single-session emotional awareness and expression therapy class for patients with chronic pain. Frontiers in Pain Research, 2022. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pain-research/articles/10.3389/fpain.2022.1028561/full
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11. Van der Kolk, B.A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.