[icegreentea]

Well, the fun part about acupuncture is this that all the studies that 'disprove' acupuncture are disproving very specific things. Specifically, they show that 'traditional chinese acupencture' with the whole crap about chi and meridians and whatever are not significantly different from the control treatment.

The control treatment is typically use of acupuncture needles in areas not specifically specified by codified acupuncture standards (it is a thing... you can go to school for this stuff remember), or the use of sham needles, which still penetrate by like half a inch or something.

All most of the studies you will find that both arms (control and 'real' acupuncture) both show similar improvements in outcome. A valid (and I think the right one) conclusion to draw from these studies is that while the internal logic of acupuncture doesn't do anything, the mechanical action of poking needles into the body has non-trivial benefits.

If you can't get acupuncture covered by insurance, you can look into dry needling (its mechanically the same thing...). A quick google search tells me that some states will allow chiropractors and physiotherapists to perform dry needling and may fall under different insurance buckets.

edit: sorry, I forgot to add this in. obviously poking needles into muscles won't do anything for stuff that isn't rooted in muscles/other connective tissue. Won't do shit for your asthma or allergies for example...