Smoking Cessation Acupuncture
Chinese acupuncture theory started about 3000 years ago and was completed 1500 years ago. At that time, there were 349 acupoints found. Nowadays, we have 361 acupoints. That means for the last 500 years, only 12 classic acupoints were found. These points have specific functions for treating different diseases and problems. Actually, many other points were found but not well recognized yet, which were called extra points. One point, named Tian Mi, is one of the extra points for quitting smoking. It was found by an American doctor in 1981 by accident. He was supposed to use one of the classic points to treat a patient for coughing, but he misplaced the needle about .5 cm above the traditional classic point. Instead of curing the cough, the patient stopped smoking. So, ever since, more and more evidence found that this point is at least 70% effective. We found that these points combined with other acupoints are almost 85% guaranteed in our office.
Using acupuncture for quitting smoking is not only to get rid of the desire for smoking but also to let the patient have a sick taste for cigarettes (as opposed to just getting used to it) so that they become averse to it. Also, acupuncture can get rid of the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal such as anxiety and etc. The only problem now is that after quitting smoking a few people probably gain weight. That is the disadvantage of this method.
In addition, there is an interesting phenomenon that after acupuncture, some patients don’t want to quit right away, but in a few months, they quit all of a sudden. Some patients quit after 2 sessions, but overall, patients generally need about 6 sessions.