What Is GunnIMS

“Nicky Snazell is the only practitioner I will allow to treat me”

Jon Hobbs Chairman UK Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists, Vice President of Federation of Holistic Medicine.

The majority of patients who come to my clinic, or maybe who are just considering it and even those who I have personally treated, are totally confused about what GunnIMS is and also how it differs from Acupuncture. The general assumption is that GunnIMS uses needles, so it must be acupuncture, right? Wrong.

 

What is the Difference Between Acupuncture and GunnIMS

 

Acupuncture is an Eastern technique, originally developed between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, without the benefits of modern anatomical knowledge we have today. Chinese Medicine is based on the assumption that energy, or Chi, flows around the body along defined meridian lines. The belief then is that by inserting needles into these meridian lines, it will affect the chi to bring the body back into balance. As a general rule the chi flows in fascia below the skin level, which is not too deep in the body. Typically needles would be inserted into the fascia and left in place for up to 30 minutes. Western acupuncture is a subset of Eastern acupuncture and follows similar principles.

 

GunnIMS was developed much more recently, over the last 40 years, by Professor Gunn, a Vancouver based Doctor, using western knowledge of the anatomy and uses needles as a micro surgical tool, cutting and directly into muscles which are not reacting properly to nerve signals and causing excess pressure on nerves, leading to long-term, or chronic pain. It thus bears almost no resemblance to acupuncture other than the fact that both techniques use a needle. It’s about as relevant as saying surgeons and cake makers both use knives.

Who Can Benefit From GunnIMS

Many people who have, or are suffering long-term unresolved spinal pain, can be helped much more by GunnIMS than any other technique currently available. In fact, GunnIMS is unsurpassed in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic muscular-related nerve (neuropathic) problems.

 

I’ll explain that with an analogy. Think of your car: if your headlight bulb keeps blowing because of a faulty wire in the fuse box, then you need to fix the fuse box, not keep replacing the headlight bulb. This seems blindingly obvious.

 

The way that human anatomy is formed in the womb means that the limbs can be considered an extension of the spine. So, specific parts of the body are controlled by specific nerves, their roots emerging at the spine. Just as in the car analogy, you could have pain in your foot because of a nerve problem in your back, or an elbow problem because of a nerve problem in the neck.

This is why people who suffer pain in the leg or foot get no relief from endless treatments on their leg or foot. Keep changing the light bulb and it won’t fix the problem.

Didn’t we just agree it was blindingly obvious to fix the fuse box? Yet I’ve lost track of the number of times patients have arrived having suffered long-term pain which they have been told was permanent and nothing could be done and just get on with it.

This Is Simply Not True

Even worse, they have had many, many treatments on the symptom area, rather than the root cause of the problem in the spine.