Which one is more effective, acupuncture or massage?

I have been doing physical therapy for eight years, and I really can’t give you a black-and-white answer to this question. There is no absolute right or wrong between the two methods. The effect all depends on the situation in which it is used and who it is used on.

Last week, I met a young man who works on the Internet. He slept on the sofa for two hours at three o'clock in the morning. When he came, his neck was at an angle and he couldn't touch it. During this acute spasm, the muscles were as hard as frozen pork. If you dared to press it with your hand, he would jump up on the spot in pain. I stuck two needles in his hand at that time. After twisting it for less than a minute, he "hissed" on his own. He made a sound and said that his neck seemed to be less stiff. He sat there for 20 minutes to relax. When he could slowly turn around, I gave him a light massage. When he came in that day, he even struggled to open the door, but when he left, he could drive back by himself. In this kind of acute pain and extremely high muscle tension, the immediate analgesic and antispasmodic efficiency of acupuncture cannot be compared with massage.

But if you think acupuncture is better than massage, that’s too biased. My mother is prone to needle-sickness, let alone acupuncture. She feels dizzy when she sees me holding the needle box. She has degenerative changes in her knee joints as she gets older. When the temperature drops, she is in so much pain that she can’t walk. Every time I press the tendons around her knee joints, and do the Doubi and Yanglingquan injections for about ten minutes, and then use them again. After a while of moxibustion, her legs would stay warm for several days after each session, and she would have no trouble climbing stairs. For people who are afraid of needles, or who just want to relax after sitting for a long time and have stiff shoulders and necks, the experience and acceptance of massage are not that much better than acupuncture.

There are also deep-seated muscle problems. For example, many people sit and stand for long periods of time and press the piriformis muscle, causing pain in the buttocks and numbness in the entire leg. If you press with your hands, the strength is blocked by the superficial gluteus maximus. If you press hard for a long time, it will not reach the deep layer. Instead, the superficial muscle will be painful for several days. In this case, use acupuncture to penetrate the piriformis muscle, and the tight muscles can be loosened in a few strokes, and the results will be much faster. But if you just sat at work all day and your shoulders and neck are sore that it doesn’t even hurt, and you just want to relax after get off work, you wouldn’t go out of your way to get a few needles, right? Find a reliable master to massage your shoulders and neck for 20 minutes. When you get up, your whole body will be relaxed. It is very cost-effective.

Many people are arguing online now, saying that acupuncture treats the root cause while massage treats the symptoms, or that massage is safe and acupuncture is prone to accidents. In fact, they have not met the right person. I met a lady who had a lumbar facet joint disorder before. The pain lasted for half a month. Even after three injections, it still hurt after standing for a long time. Later, she went to our store to do massage. After ten minutes, she clicked twice to reset the position. The pain stopped immediately. Which one do you think is better at this time?

We usually don’t worry about which one to use when doing conditioning. Most of them are combined. For acute pain, acupuncture is used to relieve spasm. When it subsides, massage is used to consolidate it. For those who are afraid of needles, all methods are used. In the end, the method that can solve the problem and make you feel comfortable is the best.