I’ve had acupuncture by several different practitioners. One was the chinese medicine school in Austin, Tx. I had very intense energy from that session. Several times I also went to Dr. Rey Jimenez in Austin who was an anesthesiologist who learned acupuncture in China while on an Ambassadorship to teach western medicine. Dr. Jimenez says if you’re healthy it usually just gives you energy. When you have ailments it can be slightly painful as you're releasing bad Chi. The first times he did it on me some points bled a tad when he twisted the needle and was very painful. Others, I barely felt.
I did learn many years later after decades of chiropractic adjustments, massage therapy, Tai Chi, acupuncture and even seeing a spiritualist that the pain was from SI join instability which cannot be healed by any of those methods. After two months of PT the pain was alleviated and never came back. However, the other hip started hurting a few months later and may even need replacement will know after I go to the ortho.
Sometimes it’s hard to know whether what you’re doing is having any effect. You might also try a different practitioner.

Acupuncture did not work for me. After the second treatment he was kind enough to tell me that he did not think it would work for me. It should not hurt though. My treatment didn’t.