Many people turn to acupuncture to help them with a number of conditions, ranging from localized pain to allergy relief. There are those people who will tell you that they swear by acupuncture in order to help relieve their allergies and that the treatments are more effective than allergy medications they have brought over the counter or been prescribed in the past. This is however a highly individualized thing. As with any condition, for some people acupuncture brings a great deal of relief while for others it simply does not help at all.

Acupuncture itself has been around for thousands of years and is one of the oldest known alternative medical treatments known to modern man. Once considered very much a fringe technique it is now being embraced by large numbers of “traditional” medical practitioners as a useful adjunct to more conventional treatments. Many health insurance companies will indeed pay for acupuncture treatments these days.

During the course of any acupuncture session extremely thin needles are gently inserted into various key areas on the patient’s body to promote an energy flow that acupuncturists refer to as “chi”. This chi they surmise flows down pathways in the body they call meridians, and the premise is that the insertion of the needles frees “blocked” meridians and allows the chi to flow freely throughout the body, alleviating the patient’s medical problems.

Any allergy is a reaction to a certain stimulus. This may be animal dander, dust, pollen, cigarette smoke or even perfumes and dyes. When a person is exposed to the substance that their body is sensitive to the system produces antibodies that release a substance called histamine as a defense to what the body sees as an attacking threat. Histamine may then build up, producing allergy symptoms such as a stuffy nose, sneezing and coughing and inflammation of the respiratory organs.

Acupuncturists claim that by targeting the affected areas the inflammation can be decreased and allergy symptoms are abated.

Whether or not acupuncture will be effective against an individual’s allergies is almost impossible to predict unless they try a session or two to find out for themselves. In the hands of a trained and licensed acupuncturist the treatments are perfectly safe,  so for those suffering from chronic allergies not well relived by medication, or for those who prefer to take as little medication as possible , trying acupuncture to help relieve their allergy symptoms may indeed be well worth a shot.