I've been an RN for almost 20 years.

[athena]

239. One incident is not enough to conclude anything.

Based on one, self-made observation of acupuncture apparently working, you can't conclude that "sometimes natural things work."

Your observation was almost certainly the placebo effect. A reliable scientific study has to have the following checks:
1. It should be controlled. In other words, one group of people should receive placebo, while the other receives the actual drug.
2. The experiment should be double-blind. Neither the administrator nor the patient should know whether the patient is receiving the placebo or the drug. This will ensure that the study group isn't getting better care than the placebo group.
3. The sample size should be large to separate out fluctuation.

For these reasons, a single personal anecdote is not the equivalent of proper scientific research.

P.S. It may at first seem difficult to design a placebo for a study of acupuncture, but it's certainly possible. For example, one group of patients can get "real" acupuncture, in the supposedly correct spots, whereas the placebo group can get "fake" acupuncture, in random spots and using incorrect technique. My guess is that there wouldn't be any statistically significant difference in outcome between the two groups, if such an experiment were done.