As the head of the Wellness Coach team here at Find It Health, I want to share with you the reasons why you could feel worse after acupuncture.

Our health coach team here at Find It Health strives to provide you with correct and factual data. This article will elucidate any questions and help you with any worries you might have.

With that in mind, rest assured that I will accurately deliver everything you need to know about feeling worse after an acupuncture session.

Acupuncture is Worsening My Symptoms: Why?

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Because your body is healing at an increased level, your symptoms might worsen. This sounds contradictory, but acupuncture accelerates the rate at which your body heals. This highly increased healing rate worsens symptoms for a while.

Acupuncture aims to give the patient a holistic feeling free from stress and chronic pain.

However, it is possible that your current symptoms, which you are curing with acupuncture, might worsen.

This worsening of symptoms is, thankfully, temporary and not that common. For example, suppose you have been fighting a long battle of illness or more complex health issues. In that case, acupuncture moves all your body’s energy around. It is a new sensation for you and your body, and you will become more aware and sensitive to how you feel physically. And this is a good thing. Our body’s language is painful, and it is better to understand what it is trying to tell us – sooner than later.

In more precise terms, say you have a headache—a horrible one. After a couple of acupuncture treatment sessions, you discover you have a stiff neck. Your headaches are gone, but now your neck is stiff? Your neck and its stiffness were most likely the reason behind the headaches, but you had no idea until the acupuncture treatments started to work.

Types of Worsening Symptoms

Each person has different experiences of “feeling worse” after acupuncture.

The first experience is when the symptoms fluctuate–when they go and come back. This is not a cause for concern because it means the acupuncture is working, and you just need to go for a few more sessions to keep the symptoms at bay or gone for longer.

In the second experience, the new pain you feel is borderline perpetual, but you can tell that it is a different source of pain because the first and original one has been taken care of.

The subsequent and most frequent worsening experience is similarly beneficial in the long run, but it could be unsettling at first. In natural therapies like acupuncture, there is a phenomenon known as the “Law of Cure” or “Healing Crisis,” which happens when certain symptoms reappear after a successful treatment.

Healing Crisis

The premise behind acupuncture, which is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, is that diseases first enter the body in layers, from the surface level to the depths, and that when they begin to leave the body, symptoms may worsen as they “exit” back toward the surface.

When dormant pathogens (viruses, allergens, etc.) break out from their hiding places in the body and the immune system recognizes them once more, this same occurrence is explained in conventional medicine.

Another possible explanation is the death of harmful bacteria in the digestive system, which can temporarily disturb the digestive system before new healthy bacteria take over.

The healing usually lasts less than 72 hours.

Possibility Of Acupuncture Side Effects: Nerve Damage

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Acupuncture is a form of treatment that deals with inserting really thin needles in different acupuncture points (or acupoints); some of these points lie over or are close to nerves. A needle insertion that is deep enough can touch nerves and blood vessels and cause severe nerve damage, trauma, or injury.

There are also times when the needles can break off inside your body, and because of all the movement in your body, they can move to places that can cause nerve damage.

A 2011 review found that some factors, like body size and gender, affect how deep an acupuncture needle can be inserted. If you have nerve damage due to acupuncture, please make an appointment with your general practitioner and switch to a more skilled acupuncturist.

Does Acupuncture Make You Tired?

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Yes, it does. Acupuncture therapy makes you tired, and your body tells you that all its energy is gone. Feeling tired after an acupuncture session does not mean a bad thing – it only means you should take time out to rest.

You can feel a calm kind of tiredness, like a feeling of light-headedness, or you can also feel completely burnt out. Acupuncture kickstarts a parasympathetic response deep inside your nervous system, which means your body has access to layers and layers of healing.

Feeling tired is usually common among newbie acupuncture patients. You can lead such a busy and stressful life that when you finally have a moment to yourself to pause and unwind, you unlock just how exhausted you are and have been.

Acupuncture sessions are all about reducing your stress hormone levels. In doing that, your body’s exact energy levels begin to resurface during or after acupuncture.

Anxiety Worse After Acupuncture: Why?

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Because it is working, other effects of acupuncture might include you feeling hyper-emotional, and this brings anxiety feelings to the forefront. You might feel the urge to cry or be super aware of where you are and what is going on around you.

This all means the acupuncture is working. It is reaching deep into you, to the center of the problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

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How do you feel after acupuncture?

For the first two days, you will have begun to feel deeply relaxed. Trying to stay awake might get even harder because your body’s on an overdose of endorphins. Your concentration might waver, and you sort of ride through a natural high. Get good sleep after an acupuncture session because your body will heal more quickly.

You might also feel a gush of emotional release. Some patients can go on a crying spree for hours. Some get easily irritated by anything and anyone. It is normal, which means the acupuncture is working because you are releasing all the pent-up emotions inside you. Your body stores all the negative emotions of stress and anxiety, and acupuncture can be likened to that little nudge that sets everything flowing and in motion.

You get instant pain and relief, and mental clarity. Double points for if you were dealing with a higher level of pain and injuries because you also get an elongated feeling free from pain.

Your body might begin to detox, and as such, you would be visiting the toilet often. You may pee nonstop, or your bowel movement might be more odorous. It is a good thing because acupuncture increases your level of metabolism.

Are acupuncture symptoms worse before they get better?

Yes, most times. Before you start feeling better, acupuncture sessions can worsen your symptoms. You may feel exhausted or tired, but this means your body’s energy is low, and you need to rest.

However, you feel, acupuncture deals with the root of your pain and discomfort and brings it to the “forefront”. That is why you will temporarily feel worse before you get better. Your body is still adjusting, but you feel the benefits of acupuncture soon enough.

What is a healing crisis after acupuncture?

A brief worsening of symptoms following the start of a new CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) treatment is known as a healing crisis. Apart from acupuncture, other CAM therapies for medical conditions that have a healing crisis are detoxing and homeopathy.

Any symptoms appearing throughout the healing process are considered a healing crisis. Usually, these symptoms appear pretty quickly. After a treatment, you can experience some effects immediately or up to two or three days later. The severe symptoms could linger for just a few hours or several days. The healing crisis becomes more intense the longer the symptoms persist.

But the bright side is that you will feel better than you did once the symptoms have subsided.

What are the negative side effects of acupuncture?

There can be feelings of fatigue and exhaustion, but they usually go away a few hours after the acupuncture session. For some people, however, it can last for a few days. This tells the patient that they need to get enough rest.

Another common side effect is a feeling of muscle soreness from acupuncture in places where the needles have been inserted. It happens in sensitive areas.

There can be minor bruising at the needle insertion site because there has been a collection of blood in that area.

Lastly, you can feel lightheaded and hyper-emotional. The heightened emotions result from acupuncture releasing certain hormones that make you that way.

Conclusion – Research by Findithealth.com

So, yes, it is possible that you feel worse (like acute pain) after acupuncture, but that is your body adjusting to the new treatment’s primary objective. The feelings are only temporary and clear up after a period of time. In cases of nerve damage, however, see a doctor.