Skeptics in western medicine have long insisted that if acupuncture has any effect on pain, it was only a placebo effect or, at best, temporary. However, acupuncture has been used for centuries in many areas of the world as the only form of pain control, and even as the sole form of anesthesia for surgeries. Even so, documented cases of this clinical approach has been shrugged off as “subjective” and “anecdotal” and dismissed by many physicians. Now Western medicine itself has finally devised a means of proving acupuncture’s benefit in the area of pain control. In 2006, British researchers devised a study to assess the affects on a patient’s brain during an acupuncture treatment. One group of patients received authentic acupuncture; another was treated with “dummy” needles that did not penetrate the skin. Brain scans showed that the areas of the brain involved with managing pain responded to acupuncture needling, but not to the dummy needles. This shows that acupuncture, appropriately used, produces a demonstrable physiological effect over and above a simple pinprick. Realistically, acupuncture works very well on many forms of pain. Combine it with the physical therapy techniques available at Golden Leaf Health Services, and there are very few forms of pain which I cannot help alleviate.