Chronic Pain Management with Acupuncture
So does acupuncture therapy work? If pain can be relieved with acupuncture how does it work? Could it simply be a placebo effect?
Although
many in the medical profession are skeptical of the usefulness of acupuncture
therapy, studies are beginning to show that acupuncture may be is effective
for some chronic pain conditions.
Because acupuncture comes with the ancient, and to us in the West unfamiliar, theory of Yin and Yang doesn’t mean the procedure doesn’t work. Mightn’t it just mean that we don’t yet know how it works? The means by which many drugs used in the West work is still not fully understood. We continue to use them because they are effective without being harmful. Plain old aspirin is one of these.
Research Into Acupuncture Treatment
Western medicine does not have a settled view about complementary treatment with acupuncture and research into its effectiveness continues. Acupuncture has been considered by many individual medical practitioners to be effective for pain management and it is often included in pain management centers in the United States and elsewhere.
Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa,M.D., the founding director of the Acupuncture Stress Medicine and Chronic Pain Program at The University of Arizona Teaching Hospital in Phoenix, who trained at Harvard Medical School and UCLA School of Medicine talks about acupuncture in his excellent book:
The Pain Cure: The Proven Medical Program that Helps End Your Chronic Pain.
He cites four large studies that show the effectiveness of acupuncture
therapy for pain relief as compared to conventional treatment. The subjects
of these studies were patients with, respectively: sciatica (two studies),
post operative pain and back pain.
Another study from the Mayo Clinic showed that acupuncture can be useful in relieving the pain of fibromyalgia.
Why Might Acupuncture Be Effective For Pain Relief?
One possibility is that acupuncture therapy has an effect because the needles stimulate the release of endorphins and opioids, the body’s natural painkillers. Research has shown that glucose and other bloodstream chemicals become elevated after acupuncture therapy.
The NIH Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine says there is also evidence that acupuncture treatment increases the body's electro-magnetic flow, which could cause the release of endorphins.
According to the 1997 National Institutes of Health Panel, clinical studies have shown that medical acupuncture treatment is helpful in treating many types of chronic pain. These include: headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain and carpal tunnel syndrome.
The World Health Organization lists more than 40 conditions for which acupuncture treatment for pain relief may be effective. The National Institutes published a consensus statement on acupuncture treatment. The following is their conclusion:
"Medical Acupuncture as a therapeutic intervention is widely practiced in the United States. While there have been many studies of its potential usefulness, many of these studies provide equivocal results because of design, sample size, and other factors. The issue is further complicated by inherent difficulties in the use of appropriate controls, such as placebos and sham acupuncture groups.
Some promising results have emerged, for example showing the efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting, and also in postoperative dental pain. There are other situations in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative, or be included in a comprehensive management program."
Further research is likely to uncover additional areas where acupuncture
interventions will be useful.
Why Not Just Try Acupuncture?
One thing is very clear and that is acupuncture carried out by a reputable professional can do no harm. Therefore if you are considering trying it why not go ahead and see whether it is helpful for you? If it helps you and your pain is lessened then it works. It really won't matter to you what the research says at that point will it?
For more on acupuncture therapy click on the links below:
Choosing an Acupuncture Therapist
Fibromyalgia and Acupuncture Therapy
Migraine and Acupuncture Therapy