Acupuncture is effective for sciatic pain.

Sciatica or sciatic pain is one of the causes for low back pain. A study examining the effect of acupuncture in treating sciatica. 57 patients with non-acute sciatica aged 35-70 were recruited. The acupuncture treatment was administered twice weekly for 4 weeks. The pain was measured before and 4 weeks after acupuncture treatments. Result has shown that the pain is significantly improved for all patients. They suggested that acupuncture is safe and may effectively relieve symptoms and disability in patients with non-acute sciatica.

References
Liu CH et al J Pain Res. 2019 Dec 31;12:3511-3520. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S210672. eCollection 2019.

Research has shown that acupuncture is effective for back pain.

This study analysed a few reviews on acupuncture for back pain. One review involved in 6656 participants compared acupuncture with sham acupuncture, no treatment, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, medications, usual care. Acupuncture effectively relieved chronic back pain up to three months after treatment and it provided more relief compared with sham acupuncture, no treatment, and usual care including physical therapy, massage, and medication. Another review involved 11682 participants compared with sham acupuncture, no treatment, or acupuncture plus conventional treatment such as physical therapy, exercise, and medication. Acupuncture was consistently found to provide superior pain relief for CLBP lasting greater than 3 months. The third review involved 7958 participants found that acupuncture significantly reduced pain intensity immediately and 12 weeks after treatment. Acupuncture provided greater pain relief and improved function compared with no acupuncture or with medications (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants, or analgesics).

References

Fuentes RC et al Can Fam Physician. 2020 Mar;66(3):186-187.

Acupuncture is as good as conventional medication for migraines.

Popularity of acupuncture is increasing for variety of conditions. Acupuncture is an alternative treatment to conventional prophylactic drug treatment used to reduce the frequency, duration, and intensity of migraine attacks. A review verified the efficacy of conventional migraine drugs and compared it with acupuncture. They found high-quality evidence suggesting that prophylactic drug treatment, at the treatment dosage ranges used in Linde et al.'s 2016 review, reduced headache frequency at a 3-month follow-up, compared to placebo. Acupuncture also reduced headache frequency at a 3-month follow-up. The efficacy is equivalent to the medication.

References
Trinh KV et al Med Acupunct. 2019 Apr 1;31(2):85-97. doi: 10.1089/acu.2019.1337. Epub 2019 Apr 19.

New research confirmed that acupuncture is effective for migraines

Acupuncture is effectively used to treat migraines. There is a new research adding more data to this subject. In this study, 147 patients with episodic migraine without aura completed the study. 20 sessions of acupuncture were offered over 8 weeks. Result has shown that there is a significantly greater reduction in migraine days at weeks 13 to 20 and a significantly greater reduction in migraine attacks at weeks 17 to 20 in acupuncture group compared to the control group. Their result support to use acupuncture to treat migraines in the future.

References
Xu S et al BMJ. 2020 Mar 25;368:m697. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m697.

Could you respond to acupuncture with your migraines?

Migraines is characterized by recurrent episodes of severe headaches that are often unilateral and are often accompanied by symptoms of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, such as nausea, vomiting, photophobia, and phonophobia. Acupuncture is used to treat migaraines and achieved good effects, but not everyone responds to the treatment. Why is that? A study solved this mystery.

Forty-one patients with migraines were recruited and offered 4 weeks of acupuncture treatment and two brain imaging sessions at the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University. Patients were asked to keep a headache diary for 4 weeks before treatment and during acupuncture treatment. Those with at least a 50% reduction in the number of migraine days were defined as responders.

Results showed that after 4 weeks of acupuncture, 19 patients were responded to acupuncture treatments. 10 brain areas changed to the treatments include the frontal, temporal, parietal, precuneus, and cuneus gyri. The reduction in the number of migraine days was correlated with baseline brain gray matter volume in the cuneus, parietal, and frontal gyri in all patients. Moreover, the left cuneus showed a longitudinal increase in GM volume in responders. The results suggest that pre-treatment brain structure could be a novel predictor of the outcome of acupuncture in the treatment of migraines. Imaging features could be a useful tool for the prediction of acupuncture efficacy, which would enable the development of a personalized medicine strategy.

References
Yan XJ et al Front Neurol. 2020 Mar 5;11:111. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2020.00111. eCollection 2020.

What are muscle knots?

Muscles knots are hard, sensitive areas of muscles that tighten and contract even when the muscle is at rest which can cause pain when touched. They’re also known as trigger points and can cause aching sensations and pain in the muscles and joints. When you touch it, it may feel swollen, tense, or bumpy which means the area is inflamed. It could also feel tight and contracted and sensitive to touch. Muscle knots is often caused by: overusing or injuring the muscles, poor posture, stress and anxiety. They can occur anywhere in the body, but they’re usually found in the back, shoulders, and neck, buttock. They can cause symptoms in areas outside of the muscles, such as headaches, toothaches, earaches. They are often accompanied with stress, anxiety, and depression, and difficulty sleeping.

Acupuncture can effectively get rid of muscle knots and release the pain. 

Acupuncture is effective to treat chronic pain.

Chronic pain (CP) is a common pain condition that lasts for more than 3 months. one-third of the world’s adult population experiences some types of physical pain conditions. Acupuncture is a technique to release the pain. Clinical studies have shown that acupuncture can improve chronic pain conditions, such as neck and shoulder pain and low back pain. A recent review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) analysed data between 2000 and 2018 about the effect of acupuncture on chronic pain release. 61 studies with total participants 20389 were included for the study. The chronic pain conditions include low back pain, headaches, neck pain, knee pain shoulder pain, jaw pain, hip and knee pain, myofascial pain and fibromyalgia.

Acupuncture improved the pain compared with the waiting list group. Acupuncture has better effects than conventional medication. Acupuncture has similar effects to physiotherapy. Acupuncture plus physiotherapy has better effects than physiotherapy alone.

References
Chen YJ et al Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2019 Dec 4;2019:6283912. doi: 10.1155/2019/6283912. eCollection 2019.