“How many acupuncture treatments are needed for sciatica?”

It depends on each person. Some work immediately, some take a few visits.

Usually, treatment effects begin to be noticed between 6-8 sessions if you get treatment 1-2 times per week. However, this is all dependent on the intensity of the pain and how long you have had sciatica. For more chronic pain that you've had for years, it may take a bit longer to feel results from acupuncture.

Everyone is different. For example, if it’s a chronic pain or acute pain. Chronic problems take more sessions. Average 3-12 sessions for sciatica pain.

I’ve treated sciatica patients who have had the condition for years or for days. And they all found relief within the reasonable relativity of their condition. Generally, the more chronic the condition is, the more frequent the treatment should be. Even then each patient responds to treatments individually so the prognosis really depends on the practitioner’s exam. Again, generally speaking I have found sciatica easily treated within 3-5 treatments with my combined techniques of needles and fire cupping. Make sure to check with your primary if you’re a good candidate for alternative therapies.

Live Happy,

Michael

Hello,

It all depends on how severe the condition is and how long you had the condition. Your doctor will tell you how many treatments you will need and let you know the treatment protocol at your initial consultation. Please consult your local acupuncturist.

Sincerely,

Scott Sang In Lee

It depends on symptoms of each individual. I would suggest that you would need to start with three sessions first.

There isn’t a standard amount of needles per condition. It will depend on the practitioner mostly, but I usually quote patients between four and 20 needles per treatment.

Warmly,

Natalie Ramsey, MS LAc

8 to 12 visits should be sufficient in most case unless there is a herniated disc. If there is a herniated discs then there are other topical plasters that are available for healing the disc without surgery. Thank you!

It depends. Sometimes the first treatment can help, and other times a few sessions are needed.

How long does it take to treat Sciatica with acupuncture? Sciatica is only a symptom of a condition. It is based on the condition that we are treating so the duration of the therapy will vary. In some cases, it takes a few treatments to observe some positive results, however, in other cases, it can take many treatments before we can see some stable results.

Alexandre Hillairet, DAOM.

Depends how long you have symptoms; under 3 years is about 10 treatments, more than 3 years may need more than 15-20 treatments.

Typically 6 to 12

Every person is different, but it generally takes a series of treatments to get rid of sciatica.

3-10 TIMES.

It depends. Every patient is different as to how many treatments they need. On the average if it is an acute case of sciatica, meaning it just happened, you will need more frequent treatments for 3-4 weeks.

It is depending on how long you have sciatica. The rule of thumb is the longer you have it, the more treatment you need. We usually start with 6 sessions.

It depends on so many factors. I have had some patients that 5 was adequate some some I treated for months to resolve the pain (exceptions always exist).

For acute cases, a patient may get relief within 2-3 treatments. For more chronic issues, it could take up to 8-12 treatments depending on other circumstances, such as disc herniation, stenosis, etc. Acupuncture and strengthening exercises are a great place to start the healing process of low back pain and sciatica.

That depends on the reason why you have sciatica, how long you've had it, and your compliance with your practitioners treatment protocols (taking herbs, doing stretches, etc). Generally speaking, the longer a condition has been in existence, the longer it will take to resolve. That being said, if you're not feeling some changes or improvement within 5-8 treatments, it may be in your best interest to seek a new acupuncturist or a different style of acupuncture.

Every person is different. it depends how long you have had it. It depends how good your body is at repairing itself. It depends if you are doing daily repetitive movement that could be causing it. Most Acupuncturist will suggest signing up for a course of treatment 6 to 10 visits to really attack the problem, but I've seen some people get better much quicker than that, and others have a chronic problem. Everyone is different.

Between 6-10 sessions.

Generally to speaking, you probably need one session acupuncture treatment, say about 10 treatments.

The "how many treatments" question is one I get a lot. It's very difficult to answer for several reasons:

1. The Chinese diagnostic system takes in to account individual factors in presentation. Three people could walk in to my clinic with "sciatica" but, from the perspective of Chinese medicine, all three could be experiencing sciatica for different reasons. Those different root causes will have different treatments. Some root causes respond faster to treatment than others and some people respond faster to treatment than others.

2. There are a variety of different systems of acupuncture. Some of these systems are better for dealing with certain kinds of issues relative to other systems. Without knowing what kind of acupuncture your provider practices, it's hard to know whether or not there's a good fit between that system of acupuncture and your issue.

3. As in conventional medicine, some practitioners are just better with certain kinds of issues relative to other practitioners. There's an add-on here specific to acupuncture: depending on where you're located, there could be providers who offer "acupuncture" without having attended school for Chinese medicine or actually being licensed or board certified as an acupuncturist. Without knowing whether or not you're seeing a board certified and state licensed acupuncturist and what that person's track record with pain conditions it is, again, difficult to predict what a course of therapy might look like.

Let's make a few assumptions and try to give some general guidance. Assuming your sciatica isn't severe in terms of either frequency or pain levels (i.e. you're typically under 5-6/10 on a pain scale and there are days or times during the day where you experience no pain) and assuming you're seeing a board certified, state licensed acupuncturist (as opposed to a chiropractor or physical therapist) and assuming that person works primarily with pain conditions, you may be looking at something like 5 or 6 treatments spaced one week apart to bring the issue, more or less, under control. After that you might be looking at a few treatments with a greater spacing (every other week or every third week) and then you're probably looking at either issue resolution or maintenance.

Maintenance is likewise variable. On the low end you could be receiving one treatment every 4-6 weeks. On the high end you could be looking at one treatment per year.