Hello Archie, back in 2000 I had a back operation, degeneration, L4 and L5. Long recovery, bad experience, tore my spinal cord. Ok since then, I `ve had 5 epidurals and 1 steroid 7day pak over the years. Never experienced acupuncture, but what I have had done has worked for me, and much better then another back operation. Back in the day, my mother in law had the acupuncture procedure for arthritis in her knees. Seemed to give her some relief. Ron