It is hard to prove wheter acupunctre works or not on injuries. Some injury recovers itself, using or not using acupuncture makes no difference. Some injury can never be cured by acupuncture alone. Most of the time, acupuncture gives "mental comfort" which helps the recovery. From my personal expereience, here is how my 2 years long injury get cured in 2 week:
1. Massage the injured area by a medical expert. I was massaged daily for 15 days in a Hospital in Beijing.
2. Electrifying the injured area. A doctor conncted a machine to my wrist after the massaging.
3. Spray made from Chinese herbs. I spray the area 3 times a day.
And magic happened after 2 weeks. The injury stayed the same for 2 years before the treatment.
BTW, the western doctors are nearly useless treating this type of injury.
Hope it helps.
M-Cai... What???!!! DON'T trust western doctors? They don't know what they are doing?
Are you trying to be a bigger trouble maker than me???!!!
Aren't we supposed to believe everything a doctor says, because he study 8 yrs and intern for at least half of that and wears a white coat? Shouldn't we blindly take the medicines he prescribes (to get him and drug company rich) (then richer by continued use and switch to new drug) then believe him/her when they say it isn't working because we gotta try a new experimental expensive drug?
Are you making Urself a huge target for the New World Order Police?
Haha dude, you just slammed the industry righteously and deserve a small award for your attitude of independent thinking and desire to sort out and toss out the bullcrap. Your way of thinking that the body can heal itself if allowed and supported is new thinking (really proper ancient thinking) and the medical industry cannot allow it if the majority think that and refuse to pay for needless drugs.
Great majority of issues one can doctor themselves if they have any understanding of what is going on. In this case, I do not know all the circumstances, but I feel the same way as you about Dan's injury that it either required more laying off the heavy training to allow it to recover enough to resume the load or there was other things needed to be done to complete the recovery. Only Dan knows his body better than any of us and Dan looks to be one with good judgement and open/independent mind.
Our medical industry as it is currently structured exists to generate money more than it exists to serve us and heal us. A drug often only cures the condition of our fat wallet and treats a symptom. Very few in the industry have a deep understanding of how things work together on the big picture and are not very well trained in nutrition at all.
The working relationship many docs have with their hospitals or medical group prevent them from utilizing methods that really work (and often cost very little). The ones who want to do right are kept in check. Such a doc would get called a crazy loon for telling a client to eat sprouted beans/seeds for months to stop, reverse, and cure a slow onsetting blindness... or would be outcast for giving IVs of 20,000 mg sodium ascorbate (salty Vitamin C) for a severe flu or pneumonia of other pathological condition. (Vita C stops virus from reproducing and immune system takes care of getting rid of the rest)
A convential doc told my wife she had to take a PPI drug (Protein Pump Inhibitor - a very commonly prescribed drug for heartburn) to treat her heartburn and told her that the heartburn is coming from too much stomach acid. The drugs for this are very addictive and keep the person taking them to keep the condition down, but they are nasty side effect and get you hooked on other drugs later to treat side effects. That caused me to learn about the root cause and voilla, wife had problem with TOO LITTLE stomach acid and TOO MUCH pathological bacteria. Her "Good" bacteria and the bad got wiped out when she had to take several days intestine flush solution for a scope to examine her inners for bad cancer growth and tumors. In the following months, she couldn't rebuild her gut flora back and the pathological bacteria grew more, since it feeds on sugar, processed/refines grains, and the additives in just about ALL our food. We started to make our own Kefir, yogurt and fermented veggies that contain a boatload of probiotics (good bactera). A month later, next to no issues with heartburn. If she continued down the road of the meds, she prolly woulda been a zombie forking over hundreds of dollars a month to medical industry to get "treated" my modern medicine. This happens to at least 20 million in USA alone. My estimate is very conservative.
This is one common example of how it works. (for them, not for us)
I applaud Dan (and OP) for looking into root cause and how to heal away from conventional system.
At the end of the day, it is up to us to know ourselves and the bigger picture and do right for ourselves, relying on conventional medical system is a sure way to get drugged and robbed repeatedly.