20/03/2021
“The last year has not only been a year when we stayed home and wore masks. It’s also the year we realized how very bad racism is in our country.
I realized the connection between “the system’s” embrace of dry needling, society’s skepticism of acupuncture, and racism.
What is dry needling? It’s a form of acupuncture - acupuncturists have many treatment & needling techniques, and this is one of them that not all, but many of us, practice. It’s essentially using an acupuncture needle to trigger & release a tight muscle.
But here’s a big difference: we acupuncturists can do that but we also address the underlying cause. That is exactly where the power of acupuncture lies - in the holistic perspective... how we read you, your body, your symptoms. This is what makes our medicine so powerful (and also so difficult to design double-blind clinical trials for). It aims to not only relieve symptoms but also address root causes.
And it makes sense. If I trigger your muscle but don’t address the root cause of the problem, you’ll likely have to come back to me week after week to trigger your muscle.
Ok, so what about the racism piece? I heard a PT say that dry needling is “acupuncture but with science.” That’s a problematic statement. What makes acupuncture non-scientific exactly? Racism probably? Writing it off without even attempting to understand it based on assumptions about the culture it comes from is racism. Embracing the same thing but with a different name is racism. (And also cultural appropriation and colonialism).
What is thousands of years of making hypotheses, testing them and observing the outcomes? The scientific method, by the way.
I’m not trying to call anyone names or point fingers, I’m trying to bring awareness to (probably unconscious) biases. Biases that I believe should be brought to awareness and challenged. As someone who practices and benefits from (and sees so many patients benefit from) this Asian medicine rooted in Asian culture that I have a deep respect for, I feel it’s my duty to speak out against anti-Asian racism.
Want to get dry needling? Fine, but then honor and respect the philosophy and culture”
