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.

Acupuncture reduced chronic pain and improved physical function

A new clinical research from 6 Bronx primary care community health centers studied the effect of acupuncture on chronic musculoskeletal pain including neck pain, back pain and osteoarthritis pain. In this study there were 779 participants with chronic (> 3 months) back, neck, or osteoarthritis pain. They were offered weekly acupuncture for 12 weeks. The result has shown that chronic pain was reduced, and physical function was improved at 12 weeks of acupuncture treatment.

References
McKee MD et al J Gen Intern Med. 2020 Feb 19. doi: 10.1007/s11606-019-05583-6. [Epub ahead of print]

Novel coronavirus COVID-19 special

Stay At Home,  Protect The NHS, Save Lives

Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases for example, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain that was discovered in 2019 and has not been previously identified in humans and that can affect your lungs and airways.

The COVID-19 viral disease is officially a pandemic, announced by the World Health Organization on Wednesday 11th March 2020. It has started in Wu Han of China in December 2019 and spread into at least 196 countries with over 400,000 cases and killed more than 20000 people in a few months.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)Trusted Source, COVID-19 is highly contagious, which means it spreads easily from person to person. The incubation period for the novel coronavirus is between 2 to 14 days after exposure. It spreads mostly from person to person through close contact or from droplets that are scattered when a person with the virus sneezes or coughs. People who have the virus are most contagious when they’re showing symptoms.

It is possible that someone with the coronavirus infection without showing symptoms can transmit the virus, though it is less common. Also there is a possibility that the virus can be transmitted via touching virus-contaminated surfaces and then touching your mouth or nose, though it is not main way of spreading.

COVID-19 symptoms start as mild symptoms and gradually get worse over a few days for many people. The main symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, cough, fatigue. Other symptoms are achiness, nasal congestion, sore throat and running nose.

What to do?

Follow Government rules and seek advice from NHS helpline

Self- isolation

Use the 111 coronavirus service, if

you feel you cannot cope with your symptoms at home

your condition gets worse

your symptoms do not get better after 7 days

Should you do acupuncture, if you have COVID-19?

No. You shouldn’t do acupuncture, if you have symptoms of COVID-19. Acupuncture can’t kill COVID-19, but there is a possibility of increasing the spreading of the virus due to its high contagion nature. In China, acupuncture is not used to treat COVID-19.

Wishing everyone stay safe and well.

References

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-pandemic-who.html

https://www.healthline.com/health/coronavirus-incubation-period#how-does-it-spread

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

Acupuncture effectively treated with patients with sciatica

A new study is just published about acupuncture is effective for sciatica. Thirty patients with sciatica, aged 35-70 years completed the study. The acupuncture treatment was given twice a week for 4 weeks. The visual analog scale (VAS) score was used to assess pain. For all patients, acupuncture achieved significant improvement in the VAS. Results of this pilot study indicate that acupuncture is safe and may effectively relieve symptoms and disability in patients with non-acute sciatica. This study suggested that acupuncture is safe and may effectively relieve symptoms and disability in patients with non-acute sciatica

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

A survey for acupuncture during pregnancy and the perinatal period.

If you are pregnant, should you consider having an acupuncture or not. Why is acupuncture useful for pregnant women? What other women think about this question? There was a survey for acupuncture during pregnancy and the perinatal period. 304 women participated this survey. 206 of them (68%) had used acupuncture. 89% indicated they would consider acupuncture for concerns during pregnancy and the perinatal period.

References
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871519219300666

Successful acupuncture treatment for fertility case report

This is a case report of a young couple, 28 years old man and woman who were unable to conceive after trying for a year. The female patient was diagnosed with endometriosis with chocolate cysts on both ovaries. Her menstrual cycles were regular with severe period pain. She also had bad acne too. The male patient’s sperm were in low mobility. Both patients were offered weekly acupuncture treatments. After 7 weeks of acupuncture, the female patient was pregnant without ovarian cysts. The blood tests after 7 weeks of acupuncture treatment showed normal hormone levels of Prolactin, Estradiol, TSH, LH, FSH and Testosterone, low tumour markers levels (CEA, OMMA, GIMA); increased HCG hormone level showed the pregnancy.

References
Zhu J etc Open Access Maced J Med Sci. 2018 Sep 19;6(9):1685-1687. doi: 10.3889/oamjms.2018.379. eCollection 2018 Sep 25.

Acupuncture is safe to release discomfort during pregnancy.

There is a study about the safety of acupuncture for pregnant women. Cases of 20799 women with confirmed pregnancy between 2003 and 2012 were analysed. Result has shown that there was no significant difference between acupuncture and control groups in preterm deliveries. No stillbirths occurred in the acupuncture group and 0.035% of pregnancies resulted in stillbirths in the control group. They conclude that in pregnancy, acupuncture may be safe for relieving discomfort without an adverse outcome.

References
Moon HY et al BJOG. 2020 Jan;127(1):79-86. doi: 10.1111/1471-0528.15925. Epub 2019 Sep 19

Acupuncture increased pregnancy success rates for women with unexplained infertility undergoing IVF

A recent research studied the effect of acupuncture on pregnancy success rates applied before and after embryo transfer (ET) among women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Three sessions of acupuncture were offered to the 36 women with unexplained infertility undergoing IVF ; another 36 women with unexplained infertility without acupuncture were in the control group. Acupuncture were applied a week before embryo transfer and 30 min before and after embryo transfer. Pregnancy rate and anxiety level were measured in the result. The result has shown that clinical pregnancy, ongoing pregnancy, and live birth rates were significantly higher in the acupuncture group compared to the control group. The anxiety level was significantly lower in the acupuncture group.

References
Guven PG et al Taiwan J Obstet Gynecol. 2020 Mar;59(2):282-286. doi: 10.1016/j.tjog.2020.01.018.

Research shows that acupuncture combined with medication improves endocrine hormone levels and ovarian reserve function in poor ovarian response patients undergoing in vitro fertilization-embryo transplantation

This research has studied the clinical effect of acupuncture plus medication in the treatment of poor ovarian response (POR) patients.

A total of 100 volunteer POR women undergoing in vitro fertilization-embryo transplantation (IVF-ET) were recruited and were randomly divided into control, medication (Climen, composed of estradiol valerate and cyproterone acetate), acupuncture and acupuncture+medication (combined treatment) groups. Patients of the medication group were asked to orally take Climen (1 tablet/d for 21 days) beginning from the 3rd day of the menstruation, which was repeated for 3 menstrual cycles. Patients of the acupuncture group received manual acupuncture stimulation of Guanyuan (CV4), and bilateral Taixi (KI3), Sanyinjiao (SP6) of and Tai-chong (LR3) from day 8 to 15 of menstruation (follicular phase), once daily for 3 menstrual cycles. On the 2nd day of menstruation of the cycle, the ovarian reserve function was detected, including measurement of serum follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and estradiol (E2) contents. At the end of ovulation induction, the assisted pregnancy indexes and outcomes were studied, including administration of dosage and days of gonadotropin (Gn), the diameter of dominant oocyte, level of E2 on the trigger day, the numbers of ultrasound-guided-retrieved oocyte and the cultivated high-quality embryo (grade 1 and 2).

Their result has shown that

After the treatment, the contents of serum FSH, LH and E2 in the medication, acupuncture and combined treatment groups were significantly reduced and the content of serum AMH and ovary AFC in the medication, acupuncture and combined treatment groups were obviously increased in comparison with their own pre-treatment or with the control group. The group with medication plus acupuncture has the lowest levels of FSH, LH and E2. The dosage of Gn in the combined treatment group and the number of Gn administration days in the acupuncture and combined treatment groups were significantly fewer; serum E2 levels on the trigger day in the medication, acupuncture and combined treatment groups, and the high-quality embryo number in the combined treatment group were considerably higher. The high-quality embryo number in the combined treatment group was significantly larger.

References
Dong XLet al Zhen Ci Yan Jiu. 2019 Aug 25;44(8):599-604. doi: 10.13702/j.1000-0607.180779.