Acupuncture Treatment of Phantom Limb Pain

Clinicians have published a report of a patient with phantom limb pain, successfully treated with acupuncture within a Swansea GP practice. The 45-year-old man was suffering pain and sensation following amputation of his forearm above the elbow twelve weeks earlier. After seven weekly acupuncture sessions on his opposite arm, he experienced complete relief of the phantom limb pain and significant improvement of the phantom sensations. He remained free of pain at follow-up after 5 months.

The author, a GP within the practice, concludes that the patient derived considerable benefit from short sessions of acupuncture. This benefit was commented on when he attended a secondary care pain control clinic which was unaware that he was having acupuncture in primary care. The clinic letter noted a dramatic improvement in his symptoms.

(Acupuncture Treatment of Phantom Limb Pain and Phantom Limb Sensation in a Primary Care Setting. Acupuncture in Medicine, on-line 6 December 2012.)

Author: Robin Costello

I offer traditional Chinese acupuncture in Exeter, from a tranquil clinic a mile from the city centre, and next to the University of Exeter. I graduated originally from the London School of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine’s 3 year full time Acupuncture Diploma (DipAc) course. I am on the practitioners register of the British Acupuncture Council (MBAcC), a regulatory and professional body with an entry standard of a full three year undergraduate degree level training. I have worked in a hospital in south west China, deepening my knowledge and using acupuncture and Chinese massage (tuina) as the treatment of choice in its country of origin. I have taught Chinese medicine in colleges, the NHS and at university level. I also practise Qi Gong, and Chinese dietary therapy, that is the medicinal use of ordinary foods, chosen to help achieve particular therapeutic effects in different individuals.