Does acupuncture affect the fast?

Question

Praise be to Allah.

Firstly:

Using needles is an ancient Chinese way of reducing pain and
treating a number of various diseases by inserting needles into various
parts of the body.

The specialist in this field, who is called the
acupuncturist, inserts a sharp needle into any one of hundreds of specific
points on the body. Insertion of the needle causes a sharp prick, but this
quickly dissipates, to be followed by a prickling sensation or feelings of
dizziness or drowsiness, or by pain when the needle is left in place.

Acupuncture is used to reduce pain and to treat various cases
which include arthritis, asthma, migraine, abscesses and eye diseases, in
addition to some forms of mental illness. The Chinese still use this method
and since the end of the 1950s this traditional method has been used to
reduce pain in major surgery, where the patient remains awake but feels a
little discomfort or does not feel any pain at all.

See: al-Mawsoo‘ah al-‘Arabiyyah al-‘Ilmiyyah (al-Wakhz
bi’l-Ibar).

Secondly:

Abu’l-Waleed ibn Rushd said:

They are unanimously agreed that at the time of fasting, the
fasting person must abstain from food and drink, and intercourse, because
Allah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“So now have sexual relations with them and seek that
which Allaah has ordained for you (offspring), and eat and drink until the
white thread (light) of dawn appears to you distinct from the black thread
(darkness of night)”

[al-Baqarah 2:187]

And they differed concerning some issues. Some they kept
quiet about and some they spoke about. As for those that they kept quiet
about, one of them has to do with what reaches the inside of the body
(al-jawf) but is not nourishment and what reaches the inside of the body by
a route other than that by which food and drink reach it, such as
injections.

The reason for their differences is based on the way they
looked at that which nourishes and that which does not nourish, because the
texts speak of that which nourishes. So those who thought of fasting as a
rational concept did not regard that which nourishes as being the same as
that which does not nourish. Those who thought of fasting as an act of
worship and something that is not subject to any rational discussion said
that what is meant by fasting is simply refraining from whatever may reach
the inside of the body, whether it is nourishing or not nourishing.

Thirdly:

Injections which are meant as medical treatment and not as
food or nourishment do not break the fast of the fasting person, whether
they are intravenous or intramuscular. Injections which are meant to provide
nourishment do break the fast, as is the view of the majority of modern
scholars.

This has been discussed previously in the answer to question
no. 65632. See also
Muftiraat al-Siyaam al-Mu‘aasirah by Dr. Ahmad al-Khaleel, 65-68

Fourthly:

The needles used in acupuncture do not come under the same
heading as injections meant to provide nourishment and they do not come
under the heading of food or drink; rather no kind of solution or liquid can
be introduced to the body through them, as is the case with regular
medicinal injections. Rather they are a kind of pricking that is
administered to specific places on the body with no intention of using them
to introduce any kind of liquid into the body, as mentioned above.

Based on that, they do not affect the fast and there is
nothing wrong with using them for medicinal treatments, if it is proven that
they are of benefit to the patient.

And Allah knows best.