If you play sports regularly chances are that you may have had a sports injury at some stage. Or even when you have never held a tennis racket or golf club you may still have suffered a so-called sports injury such as tennis or golfers elbow. Injuries due to sports or repetitive movements are common, and we deal with them a lot here in our clinic.
Common sports injuries include sprains and strains of ankle or knee, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, shoulder rotator cuff injuries, hamstring injuries or muscle and ligament sprains and strains. When the soft tissues are affected, acupuncture can help.
So how does acupuncture help with sports related injuries?
In general, acupuncture is believed to stimulate the nervous system and cause the release of neurochemical messenger molecules. The resulting biochemical changes influence the body’s homeostatic mechanisms, thus promoting physical and emotional well-being. Stimulation of certain acupuncture points has been shown to affect areas of the brain that are known to reduce sensitivity to pain and stress, as well as promoting relaxation and deactivating the ‘analytical’ brain, which is responsible for anxiety (Wu 1999).
Acupuncture may help relieve symptoms of sports injuries, such as pain and inflammation by:
- stimulating nerves located in muscles and other tissues, which leads to release of endorphins and other neurohumoral factors (e.g. neuropeptide Y, serotonin), and changes the processing of pain in the brain and spinal cord (Pomeranz 1987, Han 2004, Zhao 2008, Zhou 2008, Lee 2009, Cheng 2009);
- delivering analgesia via alpha-adrenoceptor mechanisms (Koo 2008);
- increasing the release of adenosine, which has antinociceptive properties (Goldman 2010);
- modulating the limbic-paralimbic-neocortical network (Hui 2009);
- reducing inflammation, by promoting release of vascular and immunomodulatory factors (Kavoussi 2007, Zijlstra 2003);
- improving muscle stiffness and joint mobility by increasing local microcirculation (Komori 2009), which aids dispersal of swelling.