“Acupuncture causing insomnia?”

Thank you for your question.
Your treatment was for severe Fatigue, but you're now having Insomnia? There could be a variety of reasons why you could be waking up bright and alert at midnight and cant fall back to sleep. I would need more information in order to give you an answer. The easier answer I could think of, is that the emotions are out of balance and the treatment maybe trying to adjust them.. Give it some time. Also, speak with treating your Acupuncture Physician about this to see what he / she thinks could be causing it. The person treating you may be best able to give you an best answer. Good Luck!
Yours in Health!

Hi,
After treatment, some people will feel the same way that way more energy than before. It is normal. It looks like when a oil lamp is running out of oil, the flame is getting less (fatigue, no energy), suddenly when you add a little oil in, the flame become very big then gradually get to stable( can't sleep at middle of night).
Please let your acupuncturist knows, She/he can adjust the treatment. If you are willing to take herbs, it helps this process faster.

Gradually with regular treatment, you should feel different and better soon

Jonathan

Since I don't know your full history or the diagnosis your acupuncturist concluded, I can't exactly explain why that may be happening. My best guess however, is that though your acupuncturist is treating low energy, they may not be treating the root cause of whats causing your low energy. Waking up in the middle of the night suggests an imbalance between the yin and yang in your body. Waking with that much energy means the treatments are addressing the complaint, but not at the right time. The timing issue and your low energy levels may be resolved if your practitioner works with balancing yin and yang, instead of simply increasing your energy.

I hope that makes sense! Again, take this with a grain of salt because I don't have all the pieces to the puzzle. The best thing to do, of course, is to bring this up with your acupuncturist. If you're not finding any changes after discussing this issue, I would suggest trying a new practitioner or a new style of acupuncture.

Hello,

Your acupuncturist should not only be addressing the fatigue issue (broad term which involve with many underlining conditions), but also focusing the roots cause of the issue such harmonizing the mind, the body and spirit. You might also asked your acupuncturist for an herbal prescription. It seems that you are having plenty of energy at the wrong time, and must be an imbalance of Yin and Yang. Based on the philosophy of Yin and Yang theory, Yin and Yang should meet at the deepest part of the body at midnight, and this can be addressed by your acupuncturist for sound as asleep. Also, try to eat hard to digest food such as fat and proteins during lunch instead of dinner preventing lingering digestion into the night. If your issue is not addressed in the next couple of sessions, try another doctor or acupuncturist. You might need an experienced doctor.

Dr. Khounh, DAOM, L.POM

Based on the treatment you are receiving, it is possible that it is overstimulating you. I would recommend discussing this matter with your acupuncturist and make the appropriate changes.

Alexandre Hillairet, DAOM.

It’s difficult to figure out considering I don’t know the practitioner’s protocol. But it sounds like your yin energy (Qi) may not be so contained - yin will hold the yang (day) qi in at night. Also, your gallbladder/liver Qi may need to be addressed, especially if you wake around 12-4am. A combination of acupuncture & herbal supplements may be the best approach. Everyone experiences acupuncture differently, so it may take around 5-8 visits before your treatments are very noticeable. Please contact your practitioner and let him know the goals you aim to achieve with the treatments.

Live Happy,

Michael

The acupuncture is realigning a lot of systems in your body. Though I'm surprised your acupuncturist isn't seeing you twice a week, I would certainly keep going for several more weeks. Speak with your practitioner about your response to the treatments and see what they have to say about it. If after a few months you haven't seen a change in your symptoms, I would try another acupuncturist and perhaps get treated twice a week instead of only once.

No, It should not if done properly.

Thank you for your question.

The fact that you have that response to your acupuncture treatments is an indication that the acupuncturist needs to adjust your treatment. I am not surprised that the fatigue hasn't yet been reduced. This might take a while.

Richard Mandell, Lic.Ac.

First of all, I'm sorry to hear of what you're going through. It's very hard to tell what exactly is going without seeing in person, but when a person is housebound/bed bound for so long, their circulation of blood and energy slows way down, which leads to more fatigue and pain. This becomes a chicken and egg cycle eventually, trying to determine what is causing what. Acupuncture inherently improves circulation, which can be likened to revving an engine. In a person who's circulation is needing improvement, revving that engine, so to speak, can cause some discomfort or abnormalities at first. My inclination to urge you to stick with it. I feel your body is attempting to find it's healthy circulation and it may take a short time of working the kinks out, if you will.

I have never had this reaction in a patient in my 25 years of practice. I am really not sure what is happening. Perhaps to much stimulation in the technique. As far as not seing changes yet, just remember that your condition is chronic and will take time. I would like to see tests results that your MD prescribed for you and perhaps prescribe non conventional testings such as HPA axis test to start. I would look at you diet and other lifestyle habits as well. I would then prescribe herbal medicine and perhaps some supplementation.

Interesting question.

In the Chinese medical model there are a few reasons why someone might experience fatigue or chronic fatigue. Each of those reasons has a different core treatment. The trick, then, is to be able to differentiate why a particular patient is experiencing fatigue so we can apply the correct treatment.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Chinese medicine, we have a couple of issues;

1. There are people in the US who are practicing 'acupuncture' under the scope of some other medical license. These are people who are often well intentioned, but they don't bother to study the details of Chinese medicine and often deliberately ignore Chinese diagnostics in favor of an approach where acupuncture points are mapped to symptoms. They simply needle all the points that someone told them deal with fatigue. Basically, they've westernized the practice of Chinese medicine and apply symptomatic based treatments - which is not the point of acupuncture or Chinese medicine.

2. As much as I hate to admit it, even many people who attend and graduate from schools of Chinese medicine also don't have a good grasp on diagnostics. These folks too will often needle points that someone told them have an effect on the issue at hand.

Without knowing whether or not you're seeing a board certified and state licensed acupuncturist, how that person practices, what their diagnosis was, and what points they used it's hard to say why you're experiencing the insomnia.

To the core of your question though - can acupuncture cause insomnia? Yes, it certainly can. The knee-jerk reaction would be to place the treatment into a category called 'wrong treatment'. It is possible, however, that the treatment is mostly right and is just missing that small something that would prevent you waking in the middle of the night.

Most people think that acupuncture is completely benign and will often discount adverse patient experiences. The problem is, this isn't true. It is possible to either worsen the patient's situation or create a new situation through the incorrect application of acupuncture.

Situations like this happen to all of us practicing this medicine eventually, and the key is in how we respond. When things like this happen to patients I'm treating, I take it as an indication that I've missed something somewhere, and spend some time reviewing the patient's entire presentation and their chart to that point. This may include going back and revisiting some of my earlier intake questions to figure out what I've missed.

I suggest 2 things:

1. Make sure you're seeing an actual acupuncturist rather than a chiropractor, physician, or physical therapist who might be offering 'acupuncture' under the scope of some other license. Your provider should have either a Dipl Ac or Dipl OM national credential along with an L.Ac. or R.Ac. state credential.

2. At your next treatment, spend some time speaking with your provider about what you're experiencing. If they dismiss the insomnia as unrelated, find another provider and get a second opinion. They should go back to their diagnosis, ask you a few questions about your experience of both the fatigue and the insomnia, and then adjust what they're doing.