Female patient, in mid 40s, came with acute hip pain on her right side between thigh and butt on the gallbladder meridian. The pain radiates to knee. Her pulse told me the imbalance of liver and kidney are causing her pain. So I used San Jiao meridian on the opposite limb - upper left arm - to treat her right thigh gallbladder meridian. Because San Jiao and Gallbladder meridians both belong to the same name group called Shao Yang. (Sorry if this is getting to technical.) In layman's term, the lateral side of the upper left arm treats the lateral side of upper right leg.
Because the pain come from hip down to knee, so I needled from her shoulder down to her elbow with a few extra needles at the area corresponded to where she was having the most pain. Voila, the pain was down to 1 out of 10. With 2 more needles on the back of the right hand, also corresponded to the hip, the pain was gone. By the 2nd time I saw her, she wasn't so bothered by her hip pain any more.
Acupuncture can work very quickly if the issue is relatively new. In this case, she only had her hip pain for a week. She was 80% better in 2 sessions and already canceled her 3rd session. People who say acupuncture is expensive is because they waited for too long before they come in for a treatment. By the time they come, their issue has become so serious that it would take 10 sessions or even 20 sessions to get them back to function normally again.
Let's say if you want to stay fit, do you exercise and watch what you eat regularly, or do you wait until you already gained 10, 20 lbs and then start exercising and diet?