Acupuncture is a simple, drug-free method to provide pain relief, reduce inflammation and ease muscle tension. It involves placing fine needles into the skin at specific points on your body. This stimulates the nervous system encouraging your body to release endorphins, the brain's natural pain-relieving hormones. As well as easing your discomfort, acupuncture can help you regain the use of muscles inhibited by pain, helping you get back to full fitness. Acupuncture also has a relaxing effect, helping you to sleep better, feel better, and cope with your injury more easily. The technique that we use is sometimes referred to as dry needling. This means that the needles we use do not contain any medication. All our needles are sterile and for single use only, so there is no risk of infection.

There are two different types of acupuncture: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and Western Medical Acupuncture (WMA). The existence of TCM can be traced as far back as 3000 years. Traditional acupuncture embraces Eastern philosophies about the body, regarding pain and illness to be a sign that the whole body is out of balance. TCM is founded on the holistic concept that your body is a self-repairing mechanism, which has the ability to return to its natural balanced state of health, given the correct stimulus to do so. Treatment is therefore undertaken to address the cause of the imbalance and to encourage your body's self-healing ability.

Western Medical Acupuncture, meanwhile, is a more recent development, practised predominantly by doctors and physiotherapists who employ acupuncture techniques along with other treatments. Physiotherapists are primarily concerned with physical rehabilitation. This means that we can use acupuncture as part of your treatment plan where indicated and with your consent. Although most physiotherapists are trained in WPA, their training includes knowledge of the TCM concept of acupuncture, which is integrated into their clinical practice.

Acupuncture has been approved and sanctioned by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as an effective treatment for persistent lower back pain. This decision was taken after an advisory board examined 200 treatments and devices that claim to ease or cure back pain, and concluded that acupuncture is one of the safest and most cost-effective methods. Professor Martin Underwood, the GP who chaired the expert panel states that "The consistent message was that people who have acupuncture treatments do better than those who don't have them."