Jessica Kennedy - Acupuncture in London SE1

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Acupuncture for coughs, colds & bronchitis

Breathing freely again

Acupuncture for coughs, colds, bronchitis; the miseries of the British winter! Nothing's going to make having a cold any fun at all, but acupuncture can often be really helpful in relieving symptoms including runny nose, headaches, sinus congestion, cough, and phlegm.

If we treat when you're just 'sickening', before a fully-fledged cold, acupuncture may even be able to stop the cold coming on, or reduce the severity compared to what would usually happen for you.

Meanwhile acupuncture addresses your health holistically, aiming to strengthen you and bring you back into better balance, so you'll hopefully be more resistant to the bugs going around. This can be particularly useful if you tend towards frequent or lengthy coughs and colds.

Research

A 2003 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO)(1) found that sore throat (including tonsilitis) is one of the conditions "for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown but for which further proof is needed."

Meanwhile a review(2) by the British Medical Journal described acupuncture as "very safe" when practiced by an appropriately-qualified practitioner.

The modern evidence base for acupuncture is incomplete, and this is true for a great many areas of conventional medicine too. The Clinical Evidence website of the British Medical Journal tells us that of the 2,500 conventional medical treatments their databases cover, 46% are of unknown effectiveness (as at October 2009)(3).

Jessica continues to witness the benefits of acupuncture for many people in her work, utilising the knowledge and practice of Chinese medicine built up over thousands of years. She's happy that more and more modern scientific research is being done into acupuncture, helping to bring it to a wider audience.

Contact Jessica

Each of us responds differently to acupuncture. Do get in touch to discuss whether acupuncture is likely to be right for you, or to make an appointment.

Other conditions

Acupuncture can help with a wide range of health problems, click below to find out more:

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Detailed references

(1) http://www.acupuncture-schools.us/national-institute-health-nih-acupuncture.cfm, referring to World Health Organisation (2002). Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trial, see http://apps.who.int/bookorders/anglais/detart1.jsp?sesslan=1&codlan=1&codcol=93&codcch=196

(2) Rampes (2001). The safety of acupuncture. British Medical Journal 2001;323(7311):467 (1 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7311.467, see http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/323/7311/467

(3) From the 'About Us' area of the Clinical Evidence BMJ website, page titled 'How much do we know', http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp. Extract at Oct 2009: "So what can Clinical Evidence tell us about the state of our current knowledge? What proportion of commonly used treatments are supported by good evidence, what proportion should not be used or used only with caution, and how big are the gaps in our knowledge? Of around 2500 treatments covered 13% are rated as beneficial, 23% likely to be beneficial, 8% as trade off between benefits and harms, 6% unlikely to be beneficial, 4% likely to be ineffective or harmful, and 46%, the largest proportion, as unknown effectiveness"