Acupuncture in the news » pain relief

Acupuncture anesthesia for open heart surgery

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:05:57 +0000

The use of acupuncture anesthesia for open heart surgery was introduced in China four decades ago. Although the use of it has declined in recent years, there is a renewed interest in it in China due to the escalating medical costs associated with open heart surgery.

This study designed by scientists from China and USA (Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Shu Guang Hospital and George Washington University, Washington, USA) has sheded some new light on a combined approach of acupuncture plus local anaesthesia in patients undergoing open heart operation under cardiopulmonary bypass.

Compared with the general anesthesia patients, the acupuncture and local anaesthesia patients used less of narcotic drugs and shorter stay in intensive care unit. Surprisingly they also had less postoperative pulmonary infection. Using acupuncture to aid with open heart surgery reduced cost of the treatment significantly.

The results of the study were published in the current issue of International Journal of Cardiology.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 03:06:24 +0000

Short-term acupuncture treatment may result in long-term improvement in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome patients. That’s the conclusion of a study published in the November issue of the Journal of Pain.

The researchers have followed up patients with carpal tunnel syndrome after 7 and 13 months. The patients were divided into two groups. One group of patients had taken steroids for one month. Another group had one moth of acupuncture. The acupuncture group had a significantly better improvement throughout the 1-year follow-up period.

The findings are inline with research on Carpal Tunnel syndrome and acupuncture published in The Clinical journal of pain in 2009.

Reference: J Pain. 2010 Nov 24

Update: here another controlled trial on carpal tunnel syndrome and acupuncture published in J Med Assoc Thai 2010; 93 (12): 1463-9

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and acupressure

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 07:00:36 +0000

A dramatic improvement showed following acupressure for complex regional pain syndrome is reflected in these images below:

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Three-phase bone scan: Before (A) and after (B) acupressure

This is not an x-ray, it is a bone scan. A radioactive substance injected into one of blood vessels shows an increased circulation to the joints in the affected area. And following a course of acupressure the bone scan looks almost normal!

The open boxes show the patient’s VAS scores over time for the 7 mo before therapy. The closed box shows the rapid and sustained improvement in the months following BMT treatment. The patient’s pill usage decreased as the pain resolved with BMT treatment.

Acupuncture should be even more effective way to manage this, however, most of the patients with CRPS find that they can not tolerate the needles in the affected area.

There are a few good ways around this:

According to acupuncture principles of treatment, we can treat the corresponding areas on a healthy limb on the other side. There was also some recent research supporting this theory.
We can use acupuncture points on the same meridian, but not on the affected area, which may also be more effective than acupressure.
Laser acupuncture is touchless!

Source: Anesth. Analg. February 1, 2007 104:453

At World Congress of Pain held in Montréal: Acupuncture for Pain (II)

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:24:36 +0000

At World Congress of Pain held in Montréal, Canada, Acupuncture was featured in numerous presentations. Acupuncture was also spotlighted in the plenary session.

Neuroscientist Ji-sheng Han, director of the Neuroscience Research Institute at Peking University and founder of the Chinese Association for the Study of Pain talked about his new studies and perspective on evaluating acupuncture vs placebo:

Just inserting needles under the skin does not work, at least not in rats which are impervious to sham treatments that can nonetheless get results (placebo) in humans.

People even said that acupuncture is nothing but placebo, that’s because just touching the skin with a needle can also produce an analgesic effect.

In rats, acupuncture needles simply left in place got no results. Manually twisted needles provided relief and electrical manipulation produced the best pain suppression. If the needles are not moved, there is no analgesic effect. If you manipulate continuously, (pain relief) goes up gradually. And when you pull the needles out the effect goes down. These are clearcut results.

So, on top of the psychological or placebo effect, you have a real analgesic effect.

These days, Chinese patients get about 30 minutes of pre-surgery acupuncture to increase the effect of “acupuncture analgesia” during an operation.

Other Han studies, replicated at the University of Texas, suggest that the right method of needle manipulation and electric frequency also play a key role. Clinicians need better training because acupuncture methods are critical when treating different kinds of pain, for example so as not to aggravate existing pain.

Below are some of the abstracts discussed at the congress:

At World Congress of Pain held in Montréal: Acupuncture for Pain

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 03:06:14 +0000

At World Congress of Pain held in Montréal, Canada, Acupuncture was featured in numerous presentations. I will cover the studies in more detail in another post, but there is a quick observation I would like to share here.

As far as physical therapies are concerned, acupuncture was a hand down winner in terms of number of studies presented at the congress: there were 14 abstracts on acupuncture presented, but only 4 for physiotherapy, 1 for osteopathy and none for chiropractic.

This illustrates how much interest and attention acupuncture is receiving from the scientists compared to other modalities.

TMJ Acupuncture

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:20:57 +0000

Eating a chocolate can be painful experience when you suffer from temporomandibular joint disorder(TMD or TMJD). But it is only one of numerous symptoms TMJD can cause. Symptoms may include headaches or migraines, tooth pain, and others.

Journal of Orofacial Pain has published a systematic review on acupuncture for treatment of temporomandibular joint disorders.

The review included 19 randomized controlled trials. The results concluded that acupuncture was more effective for TMD symptoms than physical therapy. Acupuncture was also more effective than indomethacin plus vitamin B1 therapy, and a wait-list control. Acupuncture was safe with no serious adverse events reported by the studies.

Three of the studies, included in the review, compared acupuncture to a placebo. Researchers concluded acupuncture had a therapeutic effect beyond placebo.

For some very helpful and detailed explanation of temporomandibular joint visit Dr Paul Smedley’s website.

Image courtesy of Pink Sherbet Photography

Ref: J Orofac Pain. 2010 Spring;24(2):152-62.

Acupuncture vs drugs

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:12:58 +0000

Amusing reasoning of advantages of acupuncture over drugs for pain relief in an article on military medicine:

“Imagine being a military medic on a combat patrol that is ambushed and suffers casualties. Although several of your wounded troops have painful injuries, their trigger fingers still work and you need them to continue fighting. Instead of morphine, you grab your acupuncture needles and quickly stimulate the appropriate auricular acupoints. Pain relief is an essential component of combat casualty care; however, the use of narcotics risks taking the servicemember completely out of the fight. Beyond pain control, the potential advantages of BA (battlefield acupuncture) to the injured warrior include staying in the fight with no alteration in sensorium and no nausea or vomiting. In addition, the use of narcotics would force the transport of patients on litters. More combat team members would be required to carry a patient than are required to provide ambulatory assistance for a patient still lucid enough to walk.”

Acupuncture for Neck Pain

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:56:00 +0000

Quality science supporting the acupuncture use for neck pain is catching up with the practice. A systematic review by scientists from Cochrane collaboration confirmed that acupuncture is significantly more effective than sham acupuncture for neck pain relief.
The scientists from Southern California University performed nine meta-analyses. Seven of them yielded positive results.

The systematic review was published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 2009 Feb 13.

Image courtesy of Crystal Writer

Acupuncture – Pentagon’s new weapon

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:34:00 +0000

US Air Force doctors will have a new medical weapon in their arsenal: acupuncture. Military physicians, pleased with the success of treating wounded troops at home, will begin teaching battlefield medics how to fight severe or chronic pain by inserting tiny acupuncture needles under soldiers’ skin, the Baltimore Sun reports.

“This is one of the fastest pain attenuators in existence,” a surgeon said, adding that relief lasts for days.

Update: Jul 21, 2009 |
Please listen to a report by Stephanie Marudas | NPR

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Image by mindfrieze

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Acupuncture five times better than typical care for neck pain after surgery

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:49:00 +0000

It is hard to quantify the effect of acupuncture. This is why this study reported by scientists from Cancer Center in New York is so interesting.

After four weeks, 39 percent of neck surgery patients who got acupuncture reported improvements in pain and mobility, compared with only 7 percent in people who got typical care. This means that a patient after neck surgery and radiotherapy is five and a half times more likely to feel significantly better, than a patient who is receiving regular treatment. Furthermore, the study also showed that other symptoms like xerostomia significantly improved (xerstomia is extreme dry mouth which often occurs in patients who have had radiation treatment for head and neck cancer).

The results of the study were presented at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

7-year neck pain study: acupuncture and manipulation best choice for neck pain

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:20:00 +0000

Manual therapy, mobilisation and acupuncture are better choices for managing most common neck pain than many current practices, a seven year study finds.

Researchers conclude that neck collars and ultrasound are not recommended. Corticosteroid injections and surgery should only be considered if there is associated pain, weakness or numbness in the arm, fracture or serious disease.

Reference: pubmed.
Image by azrainman

Acupuncture + surgery = less pain, less drugs, less side effects

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:03:00 +0000

Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina analysed the results of 15 clinical trials on the effectiveness of acupuncture. The researchers concluded that patients getting acupuncture before or during various types of operations had significantly less pain afterwards than patients who did not get acupuncture.

Acupuncture also reduced other side effects associated with the pain drugs and surgery. Acupuncture patients experienced 1.5 times lower rates of nausea, 1.6 times fewer reports of dizziness and 3.5 times fewer cases of urinary retention compared to patients had surgery and no acupuncture.

“The use of acupuncture is still very under-appreciated…” Dr. Tong-Joo Gan, vice chairman of Duke’s anaesthesiology department said in an interview to Reuters

The research was presented at a conference of the American Society for Anaesthesiology in San Francisco. (Image by)

Acupuncture best therapy for back pain

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:37:00 +0000

Acupuncture - effective treatment for back pain

I have mentioned to you before that acupuncture is more effective than conventional treatment for pregnancy back pain, that acupuncture relieves lower back pain long-term and that you don’t even necessarily need the needles, acupressure for back pain alone is more effective than conventional therapies.

Now scientists from Germany have clearly spelled out that acupuncture is almost twice as effective as conventional treatment. And that the effect of treatment lasts for at least 6 months. This news has generated a lot of publicity from media worldwide, but not much in New Zealand.
Interestingly, none of the previous research got so much attention as this.

Reference: Archives of Internal Medicine

Pregnancy back pain and pelvic pain – acupuncture and stabilising exercises

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Tue, 15 May 2007 00:59:00 +0000

Over two-thirds of women will experience some degree of back pain during pregnancy, and nearly a fifth suffer from pelvic pain.

Researchers from Cochrane collaboration reviewed research on various therapies available to relieve back pain during pregnancy. The researchers confirmed that stabilizing exercises and acupuncture were better than usual care alone for relieving pelvic pain. Among women with both back and pelvic pain, there was evidence that acupuncture was more effective than physical therapy.

SOURCE: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 2.

Acupuncture for chronic knee pain

Dr Vitalis Acupuncture — Sun, 13 May 2007 17:33:00 +0000

Researchers from Peninsula Medical School at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth in the UK reviewed 13 studies and found 5 with more than 1300 patients and analysed the results.

Acupuncture was superior to sham acupuncture (pretend acupuncture) for both pain and function. The effects were also significant at long-term follow-up.

This systematic review of acupuncture for knee pain was published in journal Rheumatology (Oxford). 2007 Mar;46(3):384-90.