My previous blog post was about a pain reduction technique called Battlefield Acupuncture. At Khalsa Integrative Medicine we utilize both the beginning and the advanced Battlefield Acupuncture techniques and the pain reduction results have been outstanding! I believe that this technique will move much closer to mainstream acceptance within the next few years.
New ideas or medical therapies typically go through a three-step process as they move into mainstream acceptance.
The first step is to be ignored; the second step is strong opposition from mainstream medicine, and the third step is acceptance.
In the first step, therapies are often ignored when they don’t fit into the mainstream ways of thinking (It couldn’t possibly work, so why bother investigating?)
In the second step, there is some acceptance or success with the new idea, so the entrenched way of thinking begins to strongly oppose the idea. (The idea couldn’t possibly work and here are all the reasons why it couldn’t possibly work, the results must be phony, etc…, etc…)
The third step begins when there is enough success with the new idea or therapy that people many people want to use it regardless of whether it fits into mainstream medical thought. (We know it works, even if we don’t yet understand all the reasons why it works.)
An article last week in the military newspaper Stars and Stripes about Battlefield Acupuncture illustrates this three-step process very well.
Here’s the link: http://www.stripes.com/military-turns-to-acupuncture-as-alternative-to-prescription-painkillers-1.116167
Here’s some of the article:
“As the number of prescriptions for opiate painkillers skyrockets — and more troops admit abusing those drugs — the military has been forced to look beyond conventional ways to treat pain.
“This is a nationwide problem,” said Brig. Gen. Richard Thomas, assistant Army surgeon general. “We’ve got a culture of a pill for every ill.”
In June, the Army surgeon general released a report addressing the lack of a comprehensive pain-management strategy, suggesting alternative treatments including meditation and yoga.
Even though some in the medical field maintain that acupuncture has never been proved effective, the Air Force sees it as one of the more promising alternatives to combat pain.”
The article goes on to quote many patients and doctors saying what great results they are getting with alternative techniques in general and Battlefield Acupuncture in particular, and other doctors saying it can’t possibly work and therefore it doesn’t work.
It looks like we are somewhere between steps two and three in the arc of acceptance—the technique has had enough success that it is no longer ignored, and it is now accepted by some and strongly rejected by others.
Over the years, I have seen the same arc occur with acupuncture in general, organic foods, yoga, meditation, herbal medicine, energetic medicine, kinesiology, and many other modalities. This gradual acceptance is part of the process we go through individually and collectively when we are exposed to new ideas.
I am very gratified to see such a conservative and traditional institution as the military begin to embrace alternative therapies. In this the military is beginning to exemplify the highest form of conservatism: a practical examination of what works and what doesn’t work. Then, if it works let’s use it more, if it doesn’t work let’s try something else.
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