I studied Chinese medicine, did an internship on a local clinic with very low cost. We got mostly old people coming. Some points below: 1. Generalising acupunc

I studied Chinese medicine, did an internship on a local clinic with very low cost. We got mostly old people coming. Some points below: 1. Generalising acupuncture treatments is the same as saying ALL programmers are equal - there is a huge spectrum on the quality. Some people do protocols - same treatment for same disease, other people are much more inclined to do a personal treatment. There are also lots of different ways to do an acupuncture treatment. As for research, please check " Atlas Of Acupuncture" from Claudia Focks, it's full of references of studies about Chinese Medicine, with both good and bad results as well as criticism of study design. 2. On the clinic, it worked very well for chronic pain (eg: back pain) and for diseases that have some degree of unknown (due to psychosomatic disorder or alike). We had some patients that got "fixed" in a couple of sessions, others would just need a consultation every two weeks or so to maintain their health, and so on. 3. Acupuncture also works very well in tandem with Western medicine (eg: reduce side effects of some medicine/treatment), but where it really shines is for some diseases where Western medicine can't work that well - although this is easier if you're an accomplished practitioner - we had great results with fibromyalgia for example. As an example, I started to develop back pain due to carrying my kid all day, I went to a Chinese herbal doctor who recommended me some herbs - I took them once and it went away for weeks. Eventually it came back because I still carry the kid though. My teacher also have done countless diagnostics in which he correctly diagnosed some issues with his patients who were later confirmed with a Western medicine (under a different disease name).