How do the needles used for acupuncture compare to the ones used for giving shots or drawing blood?
Acupuncture needles are very fine and are typically 25-50 times thinner than the hypodermic needles used by physicians. Acupuncture needles are also solid, not hollow like a physician’s hypodermic needle. Therefore, they only push tissue aside during insertion. Hypodermic needles cut tissue so that they can inject medicine or draw blood. For this reason, acupuncture needle insertion is practically painless.
