Acupuncture has been used to relieve pain, to alleviate allergy symptoms, and to help with a variety of other health issues. Some have found that acupuncture helps children who have ADHD, by reducing some of their symptoms. It is not a “cure”, but it can be a useful, additional, treatment for ADHD.
Acupuncture is a form of Chinese medicine that has been around for more than 2,000 years. The National Institutes of Health have done studies that show that acupuncture can be effective for certain types of health problems.
They specifically focused on people who were receiving acupuncture for back pain, knee pain, headaches, and osteoarthritis. Using acupuncture as a treatment for pain is the best-studied aspect of this form health care.
It has also been shown that acupuncture helps with pain during labor, and to help alleviate some of the symptoms women experience during pregnancy. Personally, I receive acupuncture treatment for my allergies. Not all health insurance plans will cover acupuncture treatments, but many are starting to cover at least a portion of it.
A mother in Florida named Beata Karaszi has been bringing her eight year old son, Alex, to acupuncture treatments. Alex had been diagnosed with mild to moderate ADHD. He was prescribed medication, but it made him grumpy and emotional, and gave him headaches and nightmares. His mother turned to acupuncture as an alternate form of treatment for her son’s ADHD.
Dr. Laura Weathers is a pediatrician and acupuncture specialist at USF Health at the University of South Florida. She has used acupuncture to treat allergies, asthma, and ADHD. She is the doctor that Alex’s mother turned to for help.
After around three or four weeks of acupuncture treatment, Alex’s parents noticed that he had become calmer, happier, and he was doing better in school. Acupuncture is working to alleviate Alex’s ADHD symptoms. He is continuing to use the medication that his doctor prescribed before he tried acupuncture.
The medication Alex uses costs around $4.00 a month, and is covered by their health insurance. The acupuncture treatments cost around $85.00 a month, and are not covered by the family’s health insurance at all. They feel that the results of the acupuncture are worth the cost.
Acupuncture will not “cure” ADHD. Parents who are desperately searching for a way to take their child off his or her ADHD medications should not assume that it is safe to suddenly stop your child’s medications, in favor of acupuncture treatments. Instead, acupuncture can be used as a supplementary treatment, in combination with your child’s prescribed ADHD medications. Parents also need to know that acupuncture takes more than one treatment in order to produce results. Don’t give up after just one session.
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