Here are some excerpts from the article: Once acupuncture points were known to be electrically charged, it didn’t take long for some acupuncturists to abandon needles in favour of electrodes. The advantages were obvious, not least for people who were too squeamish to accept needles in their skin. But does electro acupuncture (EA) work as well as needles? The short answer is yes and, in fact, often better. British acupuncturist Barbara Gair has been using EA since 1985. A conventionally qualified nurse, she finds EA much more useful than needles. “You can tune the electrical output according to the needs of the patient,” she says. “For example, people with ‘low activity’ problems like depression or arthritis need higher frequencies than ‘high activity’ patients such as anxious people.” She also finds EA to be much faster and “more profound” than traditional acupuncture, mainly because the whole meridian can be treated at once. Typically, patients can be successfully treated within six sessions.