Acupuncture is a valuable treatment for chronic pain from the head to toes (No 12 ankle pain)

The ankle is a large joint made up with three bones: two are from the leg tibia known as shin bone and fibula –the bone next to the shin bone; one foot bone talus sitting above the heel bone. Ankle joint moves the foot up and down and from side to side. Ankle joint bones are surrounded by numerous ligaments binding the bones together. All ligaments have a specific range of motion and boundaries that allow them to keep the joints stabilized and mobilized.

Ankle sprain is an acute condition that causes ankle pain. It is casued by damage to one or more of the ligaments in the ankle by accidentally twisting the ankle in an awkward way. This causes pain, swelling, bruising stiffness and tenderness, difficulty to walk and putting weight on the ankle.

Acupuncture help to reduce the pain for ankle sprain

Recently Park J studied current status of acupuncture for ankle sprain. There were 17 studies involving 1820 participants that they analysed. About acupuncture interventions, acupuncture interventions given to patients with ankle sprain were either alone or as an add-on to the control intervention. There were different kinds of acupuncture used in these studies: manual acupuncture, electroacupuncuture, warm acupuncture. About the effects of acupuncture as an alternative treatment: 797 participants in 9 trials reported global symptom improvement. Approximately nine sessions of acupuncture were given over 11.5 days. About effects of acupuncture as an add-on treatment there were 926 participants in 11 trials reported effect of acupuncture. An average of 10 sessions of acupuncture over 9 days was given. Acupuncture had significantly better improvements of all symptoms compared with other treatments. About the effects of acupuncture on pain intensity, one study reported that acupuncture significantly reduced pain intensity immediately after acupuncture treatment and after 2 years after the treatment. One study reported that acupuncture in addition to functional exercise shortened the time to return to normal activity by 3.4 days compared with a functional exercises only group. About health-related quality of life, one study reported acupuncture improved quality of life immediately after the treatment and 2 years after the treatment. About acupuncture type, manual acupuncture had an additional effect on symptom improvement compared with controls. When added to massage and infrared radiation, the effect of acupuncture was significantly better than that of massage and infrared radiation only. From this study, we can see that acupuncture is a good treatment option for ankle spray management.

Chronic ankle pain is long term pain (lasts more than three months) at the ankle. This is usually caused by inflammation in the ligaments and tendons surrounding the ankles. Pain is accompanied with swelling and tenderness.

Acupuncture is effective for chronic ankle pain

There was a study compared the efficacy differences between acupuncture and physiotherapy interventions in improving lateral collateral ligament injury of the ankle joint. There were 15 patients in acupuncture group and 15 patients in physiotherapy group. Patients in acupuncture group were received acupuncture in acupoints Qiuxu (GB40), Kunlun (BL60), Shenmai (BL62), Jiexi (ST 41) and Ashi-points etc. Patients in physiotherapy group received TDP irradiation of the regional lateral malleolus treatment. The treatments in both group were performed 3 times a week for 8 weeks. Before and after the treatment, ankle joint’s active and passive repositioning error angles were measured by using a joint angle ruler. They found that the average error angle values of active and passive reposition tests of the injured ankle-joint in acupuncture group reduced significantly after the treatment compared with those before the treatment, whereas there was no significant change before and after the treatment in physiotherapy group. Average error angle, average active and passive reposition angles of the injured ankle in the acupuncture group were significantly lower than those in the physiotherapy group.

Referencies
Tang WJ et al Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2013 38:314-8
Park J et al BMC Complement Altern Med (2013) 13:55