Acupuncture is for chronic musculoskeletal pain, which acupuncture points are more effective?

Chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) is very common which happens to one in four people. More and more people used acupuncture for pain relief for CMP. If you do choose acupuncture, you need to know that there is diverse usage of acupuncture points for pain relief. Commonly, a combination of local and distant points is used. However, the difference between the effects of local and distant point stimulation is not clear. Recently a review investigated this subject. They studied a difference in effects between stimulating local and distant points, and the combination of both when compared with either alone. Nineteen were included in the qualitative analysis and 15 in the meta-analysis. Local and distant point stimulation was more effective than their respective controls in pain reduction immediately after treatment. Three studies directly compared the stimulation of local and distant points and found no significant difference between the two. No studies compared combined local and distant point stimulation with either alone. Subgroup analyses showed that, local tender point stimulation was more effective than local acupuncture points. Local and distant point stimulation induces similar degree of acupuncture analgesia. The benefit of combining local and distant point stimulation is unknown. However, subgroup analyses suggested that local tender points could be important in the treatment of CMP for short-term pain relief.

Anxiety and sleep

Anxiety is a feeling of unease, worry or fear. This is general symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety can have great impact on one’s daily life. For example, anxiety can disturb sleep. We know that adult needs 8 hours sleep every night for the body and mind to rest and recharge. If you cannot sleep, it affects your health mentally and physically. With anxiety the mind doesn’t switch off, it keeps you awake, and it is difficult for you to get into sleep. If you do fall asleep, the mind is still wandering around and wake you up at might or wake you up early in the morning. Due to lack of sleep, you would feel tired, irritated, sluggish next day.

Acupuncture can help reduce anxiety and make you sleep better. Acupuncture will reduce the brain activity and promote relaxation to calm down the brain. Acupuncture can regulate levels of neurotransmitters (or their modulators) and hormones such as serotonin, noradrenaline, dopamine, GABA, neuropeptide Y and ACTH to relax the brain. Acupuncture produces endogenous opioids that affect the autonomic nervous system. Stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, while acupuncture can activate the opposing parasympathetic nervous system, which initiates the relaxation response. Acupuncture reduce stress and inflammation that associated with anxiety.

References

https://www.acupuncture.org.uk/a-to-z-of-conditions/a-to-z-of-conditions/anxiety.html

Research evidence is emerging for acupuncture on anxiety

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent of psychiatric disorders. In the US it is reported affecting 15.7 million people each year, and 30 million people at some point in their lives. It affects women more. Anxiety often includes feelings of fear, apprehension, and excessive anxiety energy. Anxiety tends to be chronic and is difficult to treat.

The best evidence for acupuncture's effectiveness (Pikington 2010; Pilkington 2007) comes in specific acute anxiety situations such as around medical operations (Mora 2007; Wang 2007; Gioia 2006) or dentistry (Karst 2007).

A review found that four RCTs focused on acupuncture in generalised anxiety disorder or anxiety neurosis, while six focused on anxiety in the perioperative period. All trials reported positive findings

References
https://www.acupuncture.org.uk/a-to-z-of-conditions/a-to-z-of-conditions/anxiety.html

Anxiety is treatable, ask help.

Acupuncture can help with fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia syndrome is a rheumatic disorder characterized by chronic, diffuse and widespread musculoskeletal pain, and its cause is still not clear. Fibromyalgia is a long term condition which causes pain all over the body. In addition to widespread pain, there are other symptoms present including debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance, jointstiffness, headaches and irritable bowel syndrome. People with fibromyalgia have often had depression and anxiety. The cause for fibromyalgia is unknown, but is believed involving psychological, genetic, neurobiological and environmental factors. In fibromyalgia, pain processing and neurotransmitter releasing in the brain are altered leading to lower pain thresholds. Fibromyalgia affects up to 4% of population. The main aims of therapy for this condition are to reduce symptoms and improve function. Painkillers, antidepressants and antiepileptics are commonly used. As fibromyalgia has a variety of symptoms, no single treatment will work for all of them. You need to find a treatment that suits you. Acupuncture is recommended as an effective option for reducing the pain sensitivity and improving quality of life. There are some evidences emerging showing that acupuncture is a useful treatment option for patients with fibromyalgia and acupuncture may have a great benefit when applied together with medication or other therapeutic options. More recently, Iannuccelli C et al showed that acupuncture could not only control pain but also improve associated symptoms and quality of life. There was a report about the effectiveness of acupuncture on patients with fibromyalgia. These eight women with fibromyalgia received a course of 2 months acupuncture treatments. After the course of acupuncture treatments there was a reduction in the pain threshold and sensitivity and improvement in the of anxiety and depression and quality of life.

How does acupuncture work? Acupuncture stimulates nerve endings leading to releasing endorphins and other neurohumornal factors and changing the processing of pain in the brain and spinal cord; acupuncture reduces inflammation by increasing production of vascular and immunomodulatory factors; acupuncture improves muscle stiffness and joint mobility by increasing local microcirculation.

References
Iannuccelli C et al Clin Exp Rheumatol (2012) 30:112-6

Acupuncture is the best option for depression with pain problems

Up to about 70% patients with depression also have pain problems. Depression may make the pain problem worse and more pain may make depression worse as well. The existing research data has shown that acupuncture is an effective treatment option for several chronic pain conditions. Acupuncture is also suggested to treat depression, though this is not available option in NHS. Counselling for depression is widely available in primary care practices, however there is limited evidence for counselling compared to usual care as a treatment for patients with depression and a chronic physical health problem. Recently a report compared acupuncture or counselling with usual care alone for 755 patients with depression complicated with pain. They found that at 3 months, both acupuncture and counselling interventions were effective for depression compared to usual care alone whether there was pain or not. Patients in the pain group had greater reductions in both depression symptoms with acupuncture from baseline to 3 months than those who received counselling or usual care. All treatment options were effective in reducing pain between baseline and 3-month follow-up after controlling for baseline pain, however, acupuncture delivered a greater degree of pain relief than counselling or usual care in the short-to-medium term. Reductions in both depression and pain were most marked in the acupuncture group, followed by the counselling group and then the usual care group.

Research has shown that acupuncture is effective for muscle pain

Muscle pains are common and can involve more than one muscle. Muscle pain also can involve ligaments, tendons, and fascia, the soft tissues that connect muscles, bones, and organs. Muscle pain is most frequently related to tension, overuse, or muscle injury from exercise or physically-demanding work. In these situations, the pain tends to involve specific muscles and starts during or just after the activity. It is usually obvious which activity is causing the pain. Trapezius muscle is a large superficial muscle that extends longitudinally from the skull to the upper back and laterally to the shoulder blade. Its functions are to move the scapulae and support the arms. These muscles are usually overused and painful due to much stress and improper postures.

Acupuncture is a useful tool to release trapezius muscle pain. There were 20 women aged ranging from 18 to 40 years with upper trapezius muscle pain for average 5.55 years. They were treated with acupuncture After 9 sessions of acupuncture treatments, a reduction in pain intensity was observed on the upper trapezius muscle on both sides. The Pain pressure threshold increased significantly on both sides at the end of the treatment. A significant increase in the electromyography values of the trapezius during isometric contraction was observed at the end of treatment.

What is important when using acupuncture to treat chronic pain?

Many researches with huge sample sizes showed that acupuncture is effective to treat chronic pain. Acupuncture is not a standardized treatment method. If you see different acupuncturists, you would receive acupuncture with different characteristics for sure. There are different styles of acupuncture, Chinese acupuncture, Western acupuncture or mixed Chinese and Western acupuncture, which are based on different theories. Even for the same style of acupuncture, the duration and frequency of the treatments could be different performed by different acupuncturists. The points used could be different as well. Additional usage of electrostimulation or electroacupuncture, moxibustion or manipulation could be applied by some acupuncturists.

From research point of view, there is a great variation of acupuncture characteristics. MacPherson et al analysed the research trials for acupuncture effect on chronic pain. Majority of research trials (59%) was based on traditional Chinese acupuncture and majority of points (55%) selected were flexible. Most of the research trials are manually stimulated and only a few trials used electrical stimulation and a few trials added with moxibustion. Attempts to obtain de qi sensation were made in all 25 trials which provided this information. The maxium number of sessions varied broadly from 3 to 30 and duration of sessions also varied from 15-32 minutes. The needles or points used were range from 1-18 points. The frequency of treatment was from one session every eight days to two sessions a week.

Their results showed that when comparing acupuncture with sham acupuncture controls, there was little evidence that the effects of acupuncture on pain were modified by any of the acupuncture characteristics evaluated, including style of acupuncture, number or placement of needles, the number, frequency or duration of sessions, patient-practitioner interactions and experience of the acupuncturist. When comparing acupuncture to non-acupuncture controls, better pain outcomes were obtained when more needles were used and also when a higher number of acupuncture treatment sessions were provided. They conclude that there was little evidence that different characteristics of acupuncture or acupuncturists modified the effect of treatment on pain outcomes. Increased number of needles and more sessions are associated with better outcomes when comparing acupuncture to non acupuncture controls. They suggested that dose is the key factor.

There was a report that investigated the outcomes of acupuncture for chronic pain in urban primary care from New York. Patients selected for the acupuncture treatment were over 21 years old with chronic pain caused by osteoarthritis or neck or back pain. Acupuncture was provided by supervised acupuncture students for up to 14 weeks. Pain and function were evaluated before during and after acupuncture treatment. They found that back pain was the most common referring diagnosis 59.5% followed by osteoarthritis 16.3%. Pain severity and function significantly improved at 12 and 24 weeks after baseline assessment. They concluded that weekly acupuncture improved pain severity and quality of life.

Stress and sleep, acupuncture can help reduce stress and get better sleep.

Everyone has some experiences not sleep well sometimes. This should not last long before getting good sleep back. If you always not sleep well, this is becoming a condition called insomnia that could affect your life. Insomnia is when you find it difficult to get to sleep, or to stay asleep for long enough to feel refreshed the next morning. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, irritability, a depressed mood and difficulty to concentrate.

In psychology, stress is a feeling of strain and pressure. Small amount of stress may be helpful to have motivation, adaptation and quick reaction to any changes in the life events. Excessive stress can cause harm to the body. Stress can cause insomnia. In the state of stress, the body releases stress hormones –chemicals such as glucocorticoids to help the body to cope with the situation. Glucocorticoids can disrupt sleep and make sleep difficult.

Tried acupuncture to help you release stress and sleep better?

Acupuncture is used for women with chronic pelvic pain

If you've had pelvic pain for six months or more that either comes and goes or is continuous, it is known as chronic pelvic pain (CPP). CPP is more intense than ordinary period pain and lasts for longer. It affects around one in six women. A research paper studied the prevalence of and factors associated with use of complementary health approaches mong women with CPP. The result has shown that slightly over one-half (51%) of women with CPP used at least one complementary health approach in the past year, including acupuncture (8%), special foods or diets (22%), herbs (27%), and vitamins and minerals (29%). During follow-up surveys conducted annually for 4 years, a substantial proportion of women (44.8%) used complementary health approaches at more than half of the assessments. Users of complementary health approaches were less likely to undergo a hysterectomy or oophorectomy or to use gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists or opioids during the study compared with nonusers. Women with CPP who used complementary health approaches also had more optimal health-related quality of life measured by the Pelvic Problem Impact Questionnaire.

Stress and facial tension

Stress can cause facial tension. When stressed, you might tighten your facial and jaw muscles or clench your teeth. Tension in the face may be a natural response to emotional or physical stress. In this case, no abnormality has been detected from these scans. Anxiety can make symptoms of facial tension worse and it may be harder for facial tension to go away naturally. Facial muscles have unique features and they carry few or no muscle spindles. The facial muscles are under both voluntary and emotional control. the upper facial movements are controlled by the medial frontal cortex. Emotional stress can create tension on the facial muscles. When stressed, the facial muscles are contracting and become tense and stiff. Stress relief technique can release facial tension. Acupuncture is one of the tools that can effectively release stress and facial tension.

Stress and anxiety

Stress is the body's reaction to any change that requires an adjustment or response. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. Most people experience stress from time to time. The level is different from person to person and from one event to the other event. The feeling of being stressed can be triggered by an event that makes you feel frustrated or nervous. Anxiety is a feeling of fear, worry, or unease. It can be a reaction to stress, or it can occur in people who are unable to identify significant stressors in their life. Everyone feels anxious at some point in their life, but for some people it can be an ongoing problem. A little bit of anxiety can be helpful, but too much anxiety could make you tired and unable to concentrate. Symptoms of anxiety include, feeling worried or uneasy a lot of the time, having difficulty sleeping, which makes you feel tired, not being able to concentrate, being irritable, not being able to relax etc. When you're feeling anxious or stressed, your body releases stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol which cause more symptoms: fast heart beats and breath, palpitations, chest pains, headaches, sweating, feeling faint etc.

Acupuncture can help reduce stress and anxiety.

Stress makes acne worse

Psychological stress has also been identified amongst factors that worsen acne. Recently a study involved in 160 students was carried out to investigate the association between acne severity and stress levels as well as the mechanism for this. They demonstrated a statistically significant positive correlation between increased self-reported stress and increased severity of acne; there was no correlation between increased stress and sebum levels. They explained that increased acne severity may result not from increased sebum secretion and excretion but from changes in neuropeptide secretion and sebum lipid composition. Other studies have shown that stress may affect the production of inflammatory mediators and specific lipids involved in inflammation by the sebaceous glands rather than the quantity of sebum. Acupuncture reduces inflammation and is used to treat acne effectively. Have you tried acupuncture?​

Acupuncture reduces inflammation

The signs of inflammation include increasing temperature, oedema, redness, pain and loss of function. In molecular side, neuropeptides, cytokines and vasoactive mediators are suggested to be a part of the inflammation. After inflammation has been initiated, vasoactive mediators could regulate blood flow and blood distribution to affected organs and tissue. Acupuncture stimulates local blood flow and activates the defence systems and clear up all bioactive mediators, as result it reduces local inflammation.

References
F. Zijlstra1 Et al Mediators of Inflammation, 12(2), 59/69 (April 2003)

Stress and fertility

Hormones are the driving force of fertility. There are mainly five hormones that are involved in fertility: gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone (LH), estrogen and progesterone. These hormones are produced by hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis which refers to the complex interaction between hypothalamus, pituitary, and ovaries. This axis regulates reproductive cycles and fertility by producing those hormones. Disruption of any parts of this axis could lead to loss of hormone balance. As a result menstrual cycles and the fertility can be affected. The common symptom of imbalanced hormones is disturbed menstrual cycles. Physical and emotional stress can cause menstrual cycles changes such as irregular periods and it can affect fertility. Stress triggers the release of stress hormone cortisol, which changes the body metabolism. Cotisol is made from progesterone in female and testosterone in male. If under stress, the body keeps making stress hormone which would exhaust sex hormone and this compromise fertility. Research has suggested that high level of stress is associated with low level of conception.

Acupuncture can help reduce stress, balance hormones and conceiving.

Stress and fatigue

Stress is the body response to a state that makes it on alert. It is a feeling of being under too much pressure mentally, emotionally or physically. Many things in daily life can cause stress, particularly work, relationships and money problems. Health problems such as infertility, chronic pain also cause stress. When under stress, the body needs to make great efforts to cope by releasing extra chemicals such as adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine to prepare the action. The blood is diverted to muscles and the brain function is minimized. If you are stressed, emotionally you may feel tired, agitated, anxious, worried or depressed and having difficulty to relax; physically you may feel lack of energy, tired all the time; tension and aching are likely associated with stress. There are also many other symptoms such as poor memory, lack of concentration etc. Acupuncture can relieve stress effectively to help the body recharge battery.

10 Reasons why you should see Dr Maggie Ju for acupuncture

There are thousands of acupuncturists out there in the UK and they are not the same. Research has shown that none of the acupuncturist chose the same points, of course the outcome is different. Who do you choose?

1, Dr Maggie Ju was well trained in Western medicine and Chinese Medicine in the best medical University Beijing University in China. She could see you in holistic way and know what your needs are perfectly.

2, She was trained in China where acupuncture originated thousands of years ago and offers the best original acupuncture ever.

3, The key point of acupuncture treatment success is all about acupuncture points to optimize the effects. No two acupuncturists use the same acupuncture points for the same conditions. Dr Maggie Ju only uses acupuncture needles on the most effective points to achieve the best treatment outcome. No gimmick.

4, She is passionate about acupuncture and health care. Her dedication and skills of acupuncture are highly praised by her patients.

5, Over the years of practicing acupuncture, she developed unique acupuncture treatment approach and has expertise in many aspects in acupuncture treatments. She is keen on summarising her knowledge and experiences and is an author of a few ebooks in her expertise area.

6, She is practicing at Harley street and Kensington and is a leading acupuncture specialist in the UK. If you want to have acupuncture treatment, you simply want to choose the best.

7, She is the best cosmetic acupuncture specialist that you could get. She was trained in skin medicine and oral and maxillofacial medicine and has a deep insight into the facial aging and how to reverse it. 

8, Chronic pain has great impact to people’s life. She helped many people with chronic pain to live pain free.

9, People are under more pressure and stress than that 20 years ago. Stress can affect health in many ways. Dr Maggie Ju’s stress relief acupuncture can effectively release stress, anxiety, mood change, depression, fatigue and insomnia.

10, The last but not the least, she could help to boost fertility for women and men to get pregnant.

Stress and wrinkles and facial acupuncture

Everyone experiences stress at some point of their life. What is stress? Stress is the body's reaction to any change that requires an adjustment or response. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. When under stressed, the body thinks it is under attack and releasing a complex mix of hormones and chemicals such as noradrenaline and cortisol to prepare the body for physical and mental action. In the face, the expression muscles are contracting, as a result it pulls the skin and folds it creating wrinkles. If the stress is prolonged, the blood vessels are contracting reducing blood circulation on the face making the skin dry and collagen production is reduced and existing collagen is damaged which contributing to creating wrinkles.

Facial acupuncture can help relieve stress, relax facial muscles and promote collagen production to reduce the wrinkles.

Complementary medicine use in England

Have you ever visited an acupuncturist? There was a survey that shows how much use of complementary medicine the England. In 2005,12% of the English population visited a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioner. In the paper in 2018, 4862 adults were surveyed, 766 (16%) had seen a CAM practitioner. The most commonly visited CAM practitioners for manual therapies (massage, osteopathy, chiropractic) and acupuncture, as well as yoga, pilates, reflexology, and mindfulness or meditation. Musculoskeletal conditions (mainly back pain) accounted for 68% of use, and mental health 12%. Most was through self-referral (70%) and self-financing. GPs (17%) or NHS professionals (4%) referred and/or recommended CAM to users.

References

BJGP Open. 2018 Nov 14;2(4):bjgpopen18X101614. doi: 10.3399/bjgpopen18X101614. eCollection 2018 Dec.

Acupuncture is an effective approach to relive the stress

Stress is the body's reaction to harmful situations. Everyone has stress at some point of their life. Small amount of stress is a good thing which can help the body deal with the stressful events. But the stress should not last long, if the stress persists, it may lead to many stress related problem. How do you know you are stressed? The symptoms of stress vary from person to person. If you are stressed, you may feel sick, weak, unease, unhappy and anxious about small things and feel tired all the time even with small amount of work. Long term stress can cause damage to the organs and immune system.

Stress can cause

Hormone imbalance. Stress triggers the release of the hormone cortisol, which changes the body metabolism. Consequently, you would see signs of weight changes gaining weight or losing weight in short period of time. Also, you may see acne wouldn’t go away. Cortisol causes skin oil glands making more oil and if the oil is stuck inside hair follicles creating pimples. Menstrual cycles change is another sign of imbalanced hormones.

Weakening immune system. Stress supress the immune system, cold would not go away or cold come back more frequently. Hair is falling too much because the immune system attacks hair follicles resulting hair loss.

Inflammation and tension in the body. The brain is not sharp causing memory problem because too much cortisol can also make it harder to concentrate. Have headache very often, stress creates muscle tension causing headache. Abdominal pain: stress causes more acid production in the stomach causing bloating and pain in the abdomen. Stress inflames bowels causing diarrhea and constipation.

Anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression can compromise the quality of life greatly.

A recent research studied the effectiveness of acupuncture on stress. 62 participants were enrolled from a large urban college population and completed the study. 12 week acupuncture were offered to them. The result has shown that acupuncture reduced the perceptive stress significantly.

References
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2005290116301224

How can acupuncture help you?

Cosmetic acupuncture

Recently, cosmetic acupuncture has been so popular as an intervention for skin rejuvenation. It is the most natural and healthy way to look and feel years younger. Does it work? This is the first question people ask? The result speaks itself. Come along to have a treatment with Dr Maggie and you will like it.

Where do you often get wrinkles?

With aging, facial expression muscles contracting create lines on the face; collagen production reduces, and damaged skin cells contribute to the firm wrinkle formation. Exposure to the sun accelerates to wrinkle formation.

​Wrinkles on the forehead are formed by the frontalis muscle (frontal belly) which is the muscle on the forehead. They attach to the skin of eyebrow.

Crow feet wrinkles are the wrinkles at the out corner of the eye and formed by contraction of the orbicularis oculi muscle which is the ring like muscle surrounding the eye and spreads over the eyelids, temple and down to the cheek.

​Wrinkles on the cheek are deep nasolabial groove from the side of the nose to the upper lip are related to four muscles on the check.

Wrinkles around mouth are also called perioral wrinkles, also known as barcode lines or smoker’s lines. They are the fine or deep vertical lines around the mouth and lips. These wrinkles are formed by contracting of the muscle around the mouth called orbicularis oris.

Marionette lines are the vertical wrinkles that can be found at the corners of the mouth. These lines can give the face a downturned expression and make you look sadder, serious, or even angrier. They are related to a few muscles by the mouth.

Sagging skin: The skin can become sagging when it loses collagen and elastin. The most common cause of skin sagging is aging and the skin becomes thinner and looser due to loss of collagen and elastin.

Cosmetic acupuncture can reduce muscle tension, increase skin elastin and collagen synthesis and hydration and help skin cell regeneration. As a result, the facial skin is free of wrinkles, becomes tighter and firmer. This gives you the glowing younger looking skin.

Acne treatment with acupuncture:

Acne is a very common skin disease affecting a majority of the population at some point in their life. Acne is caused by bacteria infection, increased oil production and inflammation. Acne is not life-threatening condition but it does affect people quality of life dramatically and damage people’s confidence. It is one of the most difficult conditions to treat. Acupuncture is used to treat acne effectively.

Stress and anxiety relief acupuncture

Stress is the body's reaction to harmful situations. The symptoms of stress vary from person to person. You feel stressed. This is psychological stress that you can feel mentally. Emotional symptoms include feeling agitated, frustrated, easily getting crossed, easily losing control, having difficulty relaxing and calming down, feeling anxious, depressed etc. Stress is not just psychological, but physical too. People often ignore physical stress. If you have these signs below and no specific causes are found for it, you could be under physical stress: hormone imbalance. Stress triggers the release of the hormone cortisol, which changes the body metabolism. Consequently, you would see signs of weight changes gaining weight or losing weight in short period of time. Also, you may see acne wouldn’t go away. Cortisol causes skin oil glands making more oil and if the oil is stuck inside hair follicles creating pimples. Weakening immune system. Stress supress the immune system, cold would not go away or cold come back more frequently. Hair is falling too much because the immune system attacks hair follicles resulting hair loss. Inflammation and tension in the body. The brain is not sharp causing memory problem because too much cortisol can also make it harder to concentrate. Have headache very often, stress creates muscle tension causing headache. Abdominal pain: stress causes more acid production in the stomach causing bloating and pain in the abdomen. Stress inflames bowels causing diarrhea and constipation. Other physical symptoms include low energy, feeling tired, headache, aching or pain in the body, muscles tension, dizziness, insomnia, digestive problems, frequent illness, loss of libido, shaking, clenching jaw, cold hands and feet etc. Behaviour symptoms include always worrying, lack of concentration, poor memory, feeling slow, being pessimistic, unable to stop eating or eating less. Acupuncture is a best way to relive stress, psychologically and physically.

Pain relief acupuncture

Acupuncture can relieve pain. This is one of the acupuncture’s well-known effects. Acupuncture is used to relieve many pain conditions including a headache, neck pain, back pain, chronic pelvic pain, vulvodynia, prostatitis, bladder pain, chronic abdominal pain, shoulder pain, arm pain elbow pain, hand pain, hip pain, thigh pain knee pain, leg pain and ankle pain etc. You name it.

Vulvodynia

Vulvodynia is a medical condition characterized by nonspecific vulval pain. With up to 15% of women suffering from this condition, you can be sure that you’re not alone if you have vulvar pain. It is a persistent burning or stinging pain of the vulva. It could be a constant pain and get worse when under pressure or it could be only painful under pressure such as using tampon or sex. The pain can be only in the vulvar area. It can also spread to the thigh, tummy or back. Women with vulvodynia could have severe period pain, heavy periods, frequent urination and pain and changed bowel habit. This condition is not life threatening, but it has great impact on a women’s life physically and emotionally. It could affect their daily activity and relationships. Some of them can only stay in bed all the time when the pain is severe. Some women with severe vulval pain feel that it is so difficult to cope with this pain every day especially when they are told that there is no effective treatment and they have to live with the pain all of their lives. Acupuncture can help reduce vulval pain effectively.

Prostatitis/Chronic pelvic pain syndrome

Chronic nonbacterial prostatitis is the most common type of prostatitis. Around 1 in 5 men has this condition at some point in their life. The most prominent symptom is chronic pain lasting longer than 3 months. Pain can be in the perineum, testicles, tip of the penis, pubic or bladder area and may spread out to the abdomen, the back and the rectum. Urination pain and frequent urination can be associated with the pain. The prostate can be enlarged due to swelling and tender due to inflammation. Acupuncture is effective to reduce the pain.

Bladder pain/Interstitial cystitis (IC)

Interstitial cystitis (IC)/bladder pain syndrome (BPS) is a chronic bladder condition. It is a feeling of pain and pressure in the bladder area. Symptoms range from mild to severe. For some patients the symptoms may come and go, and for others they don't go away. The pain may be worse when the bladder is full and may be temporarily relieved after urination. The pain could be worse during periods or after having certain foods or drinks. IC/BPS is not an infection, but it may feel like a bladder infection. Women with IC/BPS may feel pain when having sex. This condition is poorly understood. Apart from the pain, it is also accompanied with problems of urination, such as sudden, strong urges to urinate, more frequent urination than normal, pain when passing water, waking up quite a few times during the night to urinate. The exact cause of interstitial cystitis isn't clear. Unlike other types of cystitis, there's no obvious infection in the bladder. Acupuncture can help reduce the pain.

Low back pain

95% of back pain occurs in the lower back. It is defined as non-specific low back pain, if there is no cause found. Nonspecific low back pain is tension, soreness and stiffness in the lower back region. Acupuncture is very effective for nonspecific low back pain and it helps patients with low back pain reducing lumber surgery rate. This is number one reason that people seek acupuncture treatment.

Hip pain

Hip pain is a common condition that can be caused by a wide variety of problems. The precise location of the hip pain can help to find out the underlying cause. Hip pain on the outside of the hip referred to the upper thigh or outer buttock is usually caused by problems with muscles, ligaments, tendons and other soft tissues that surround the hip joint. Hip pain can also a referred pain from low back. Acupuncture can help reduce hip pain.

Fertility acupuncture  and IVF  support acupuncture

Acupuncture boosts women's fertility by stimulating nerve endings and brain, as a result increases reproductive system blood flow, reduces inflammation, improves hormone balance, egg quality and reduces stress. It also releases tube spasm and improves uterine lining and uterine receptivity.

IVF is one of the most successful infertility treatments and this treatment brings hope for pregnancy for many people. However, the majority of IVF cycles do not result in pregnancy. It is important to maximize the chance to succeed. Many patients have turned to acupuncture treatments to increase the success rate of IVF. The first report was by Stener-Victorin et al. 15 years ago suggesting that acupuncture can increase the IVF clinical pregnancy rate (CPR). In recent years, there have been many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating acupuncture in IVF. There were more positive effects from acupuncture during IVF from these researchers.

Energy boost acupuncture

Chronic fatigue and low energy: If you are feeling tired all the time, you are not alone. It could affect about 20% population. At most of the time, this is not caused by severe illness. It could be linked with mood and the accumulation of too much stress. Poor circulation is one of the causes. Microcirculation includes blood circulation in the smallest blood vessels and lymphatic circulation in the lymphatic capillaries. Microcirculation carries oxygenated blood away from the heart through the arteries, capillaries to the tissues of the body. It provides the functional blood supply with oxygen and nutrients to the cells to all body tissue. It picks up carbon dioxide and waste products and returns deoxygenated blood through veins back to the heart. Circulation is the key for body function. It provides energy that body needs and detoxifies the body. If this circulation is poor, the body will not
function well and you could feel tired. Acupuncture can help to boost energy and reduce fatigue.
Other conditions: Regulating hormones and immunity, hot flushes, nerve pain, insomnia, Parkison's disease, MS, acid reflex, IBS, etc

Acupuncture can help reduce depression and anxiety

Depression affects people in many ways and can cause symptoms from psychological, physical to social symptoms.

The psychological symptoms of depression include: persistent low mood or sadness, feeling anxious or worried, feeling irritable and intolerant of others, feeling hopeless and helpless, having low self-esteem, without motivation or interest in things, having suicidal thoughts or thoughts of harming yourself.

The physical symptoms of depression include: moving or speaking more slowly than usual, changes in appetite or weight, constipation, unexplained aches and pains, lack of energy, loss of libido, change of menstrual cycle, disturbed sleep.

The social symptoms of depression include: not doing well at work, avoiding contact with friends and taking part in fewer social activities, neglecting, having difficulties with other people.

Research has shown that acupuncture can help depression. For example,

There was a study with 120 female patients with depression treated with acupuncture and music. Acupuncture points used include Baihui (GV 20), Shenting (GV 24), Neiguan (PC 6), Shenmen (HT 7), Sanyinjiao (SP 6) and Taichong (LR 3). Result has shown that combined acupuncture and the music, ot acupuncture alone can help reduces the severity of depression and anxiety.


References
Zhang H et al Zhongguo Zhen Jiu. 2018 Dec 12;38(12):1293-7. doi: 10.13703/j.0255-2930.2018.12.011.

Prefrontal cortex plays a role in pain management including acupuncture

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the cerebral cortexcovering the front part of the frontal lobe. This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behaviour. It is also important in pain processing. Changes in neurotransmitters, gene expression, glial cells, and neuroinflammation occur in the PFC during acute and chronic pain, that result in alterations to its structure, activity, and connectivity. This function replies on its connections to other areas of the cerebral neocortex, hippocampus, periaqueductal gray (PAG), thalamus, amygdala, and basal nuclei.

“The medial PFC (mPFC) could serve dual, opposing roles in pain: (1) it mediates antinociceptive effects, due to its connections with other cortical areas, and as the main source of cortical afferents to the PAG for modulation of pain. This is a 'loop' where, on one side, a sensory stimulus is transformed into a perceptual signal through high brain processing activity, and perceptual activity is then utilized to control the flow of afferent sensory stimuli at their entrance (dorsal horn) to the CNS. (2) It could induce pain chronification via its corticostriatal projection, possibly depending on the level of dopamine receptor activation (or lack of) in the ventral tegmental area-nucleus accumbens reward pathway.”

“The PFC is involved in biopsychosocial pain management. This includes repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, antidepressants, acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, music, exercise, partner support, empathy, meditation, and prayer. Studies demonstrate the role of the PFC during placebo analgesia, and in establishing links between pain and depression, anxiety, and loss of cognition. In particular, losses in PFC grey matter are often reversible after successful treatment of chronic pain.”

References
Role of the Prefrontal Cortex in Pain Processing.
Ong WY et al Mol Neurobiol. 2018 Jun 6. doi: 10.1007/s12035-018-1130-9. [Epub ahead of print]

Feeling anxious all the time? Acupuncture can help

Anxiety is a feeling of unease, worry or fear. If it is persistent, it can affect daily life. The symptoms of anxiety include restlessness, a feeling of dread and being on edge, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping and being easily irritated. Acupuncture is used by many people to reduce their anxiety. Recent research has supported the application. A study investigated the effect of acupuncture and massage on anxiety. In this study anxiety levels were measured by a self-perception 5 points scale and at the end of the 5th and the 10th treatment. After a maximum of ten treatments, the levels of anxiety were reduced (98.39% after five sessions). Women at their tenth treatment reached lower anxiety levels than those of men.This study suggested that acupuncture is efficient to treat anxiety. A review analysed 13 publications for acupuncture on anxiety. They encourage using acupuncture for anxiety treatment with effective outcomes and fewer side effects than conventional treatment. The most common used acupuncture points for anxiety is Yintang(EX-HN 3), an acupoint located between the eyebrows.

References
Amorim D et al Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2018 May;31:215-219. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2018.02.016. Epub 2018 Mar 1.
Amorim D et al Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2018 May;31:31-37. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2018.01.008. Epub 2018 Jan 31.
Kwon CY and Lee B Med Acupunct. 2018 Apr 1;30(2):73-79. doi: 10.1089/acu.2017.1268.

Depression and anxiety are most commonly treated with acupuncture after lower back pain in the US.

Acupuncture has been a popular alternative medicine in the United States for several decades. It becomes common knowledge that acupuncture can release pain. People with chronic pain often seek acupuncture treatments and it is currently emerging as a unique non-pharmaceutical choice for pain against opioid crisis in the US. For what other conditions do people seek acupuncture treatment in the US? There was a survey studied the conditions that the most commonly treated acupuncture conditions. 419 acupuncturists across the US participated the study. Top 10 conditions that people go for acupuncture are lower back pain, depression, anxiety, headache, arthritis, allergies, general pain, female infertility, insomnia, neck pain and frozen shoulder. Top 99 conditions were grouped into a few categories: pain represents the largest category; and mental health management, especially for mood disorders, is in greatest demand. Immune system dysfunctions, gastrointestinal diseases, gynecology and neurology have also had high ranks.

As you can see that depression and anxiety are most commonly treated with acupuncture after lower back pain. Depression and Anxiety are two different medical conditions, their symptoms, causes, and treatments can often overlap.

References
Wang H et al Am J Chin Med. 2018 Oct 9:1-33. doi: 10.1142/S0192415X18500738.