Is Acupuncture Safe?

Yes. Licensed Acupuncturists know the human anatomy well, and insert needles in a safe fashion.

The instruments used to penetrate the skin are pre-sterilized and disposable after a single use. I am well aware of the concern over infectious diseases, and take every measure to insure cleanliness as all health care professional do.

Bleeding rarely occurs, and if it did the amount is minimal like a drop and in no way dangerous.

The average acupuncturist’s malpractice insurance is 100 times less than that of an MD general practitioner.  My malpractice insurance is less than $300 per year.  If you count the amount of time it takes someone making $45,000 per year (about $20.00 per hour) to process my application, check on my licensure, update the companies client database, print out and send notification of my coverage, my yearly fee has been charged as overhead. The reason is that you truly have to go out of your way to hurt someone with acupuncture. The most common “injury” is a bruise at the site of needling which occurs in patients taking blood thinning medications.

In a Japanese survey of 55,291 acupuncture treatments given over five years by 73 acupuncturists, 99.8% of them were performed with no significant minor adverse effects and zero major adverse incidents (Hitoshi Yamashita, Bac, Hiroshi Tsukayama, BA, Yasuo Tanno, MD, PhD. Kazushi Nishijo, PhD, JAMA). Two combined studies in the UK of 66,229 acupuncture treatments yielded only 134 minor adverse events. (British Medical Journal 2001 Sep 1). The total of 121,520 treatments with acupuncture therapy were given with no major adverse incidents (for comparison, a single such event would have indicated a 0.0008% incidence).

According to wikipedia “A recent study by Healthgrades found that an average of 195,000 hospital deaths in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 in the U.S. were due to potentially preventable medical errors. (By Physicians and hospital personnel)

Do you reuse needles?

Never! Needles are only used one time and disposed of in sterile sealed containers after every treatment. I use disposable needles, there is no risk of infection from the treatments. The needles are sterile and sealed in individual packages. Apart from being an unforgivable ethical violation, an Acupuncturist could lose their license among other things. Being a Healthcare Professional entails huge responsibility.