Although acupuncture is not a “cure-all” treatment, it is very effective in treating several diseases and conditions. Acupuncture is most effective at treating chronic pain, such as headaches; menstrual cramps; and low back, neck, or muscle pain. Thus, the 3 most common presenting diagnoses of chronic pain conditions included low back, shoulder, and neck pain. The average length of each treatment session was about 20 minutes. The purpose of the survey was mainly to obtain patient feedback of their response to acupuncture in general, rather than to compare the efficacy of any individual treatment.
It can also be used to treat arthritis, facial pain, pain from shingles, and spastic colon and colitis conditions. Acupuncture has also been successful in treating obesity and addictions such as nicotine or drugs. Acupuncture also can improve the functioning of the immune system (the body’s defense system against diseases). Speaking about specificity and technics of the given method of treatment, the acupuncturist, the person who performs acupuncture, will swab each acu-point area with alcohol before tapping a hair-thin, metal needle into the site.
The number of needles used during treatment can vary from two to eight. The needles are placed at various depths, ranging from a fraction of an inch to two inches. They are placed under the skin in carefully determined points on the body. After the needles have been inserted, they stay in place for up to 20 minutes. During the treatment, acupuncture needles are twirled, energized electrically, or warmed to intensify the effect of the treatment. When electricity is applied, a tingling sensation is common.
However, if the sensation becomes too strong, you can ask your acupuncturist to reduce the electricity at any time. In a treatment series, the acupuncturist will use different combinations of points, different needling techniques, or both. These combinations help stimulate new sources of healing as the person’s response to treatment is observed. You may feel a slight prick when the needle is inserted, but it is much less than the prick you feel during an injection, since the needles are much thinner. You may feel a heaviness, numbness, tingling, or mild soreness after the needles have been inserted.
A feeling of deep heaviness or numbness, called “deqi,” (pronounced day chee) means the treatment is working. As to the actual proof concerning positive effect of acupuncture treatment application for people suffering from chronic pains, it would be desirable to give an example of one acupuncture experiment on chronic pain which was done in Finland. It involved 348 people over a 5 year period. The patients received a series of treatments with each series involving 5 acupuncture sessions. 41% of the patients got more than one series of treatment.
Results showed that more than 40% of the patients had a significant relief of pain. The conditions showing improvement were muscle pains involving the head, neck, shoulder, and arm. In contrast, arthritis and backpain had less favourable results. What was interesting is that 65% of the patients who took pain killers prior to receiving acupuncture either stopped or reduced the amount of pain drugs they were taking. Those patients who were suffering from muscle types of pain such as a headache did better in reducing their medications than those patients with arthritis.
Evidently to show efficiency of the given treatment method of, it would be expedient to mention one more experiment which objectives were to assess the benefit of acupuncture on the quality of life and pain relief in patients with chronic pain. Participants were selected from patients at the Veterans Affairs pain clinic in San Diego, California, between June 2000 and July 2001. We used a survey that consisted of questions commonly used by pain specialists in evaluating the improvement in quality of life and functions4-6 to assess the role of medical acupuncture in chronic pain management.
Patients who had given consent and received 3 initial consecutive acupuncture treatments with no more than 2 weeks between treatments were asked the following questions: (1) Do you feel your pain relief has improved with acupuncture? (2) Does acupuncture improve your sleep at night? (3) Does acupuncture improve your overall sense of well-being? If the answer to any of the questions was yes, the patients were asked to rank the degree of response as mild, moderate, or significant.
In addition, a 4th question was included: Are you able to reduce your pain medication consumption? For those who elected to continue the treatment, a repeat survey was used every 6-8 weeks to continue assessing the patient response to acupuncture. Over a 1-year period, a total of 42 patients received acupuncture for chronic pain. Thirty-three of them (mean age, 60 years) were able to complete the initial 3 consecutive treatments with less than 2 weeks in between, and complete the questionnaire after the 3rd treatment.
Twenty-four of the patients were men and 9 were women. Among the 9 patients who did not complete the 3 consecutive treatments, 6 of them were lost to follow-up after the initial 2 treatment sessions. Two of them completed the initial 2 treatments more than 2 weeks apart and have not completed the 3 consecutive treatments; 1 patient requested to stop the therapy after the 1st treatment due to lack of efficacy. The overall “no-show” rate at the clinic is about 25%. A total of 85% (28/33) of patients reported some degree of pain relief. Of these, 30.
3% (10), 36. 3% (12), and 18. 2% (6) reported significant, moderate, and mild degrees of pain relief, respectively, vs 15. 2% (5) reporting no pain releif. Thus having studied some various and independent researches about efficiency of acupuncture application at chronic pains it is possible to come to a conclusion, that the control tests have shown safety and clinical efficiency at a numberof diseases, and, in particular, in treatment of various painful syndromes (a toothache, a chronic pain, a pain in a back, a headache, etc. )
So summarizing above-stated, it would be desirable to mention one benefit to acupuncture. It is a drug-free way to minimize pain. With drugs, people often develop a tolerance, or the need for an increased dosage to achieve the same required effect. However, this does not happen with acupuncture. In addition, acupuncture allows the doctor to immediately examine a person’s response to the treatment and adjust it if necessary.
Bibliography:
1. “Understanding Acupuncture”. Book by Stephen J. Birch, Robert L. Felt; Churchill Livingstone, 1999.2. “Acupuncture: A Viable Medical Alternative”. Book by Marie Cargill; Praeger Publishers, 1994. 3. “Evidence for Acupuncture’s Analgesic Effectiveness and Proposals for The Physiological Mechanisms Involved”. Journal article by John B. Murray; Journal of Psychology, Vol. 129, 1995. 4. “Acupuncture: a review of its history, theories, and indications”. Ceniceros S, Brown GR. South Med J. 1998;91:1121-1125. 5. ”Methodological and ethical issues in clinical trials of acupuncture”. Hammerschlag R. J Altern Complement Med. 1998;4:159-171.