Category: Pain

A retrospective chart review by doctors at a major Veterans Affairs Medical Centre located in the southeastern United States, suggests that auricular (ear) acupuncture is effective in treating stubborn pain conditions. The review covered 147 patients who had received auricular acupuncture for common pain conditions, including body pain and headaches. Most veterans received fewer than three treatments, separated by three to five months. Patients’ mean pain scores decreased by almost 60%. The majority (84%) reported that treatment was helpful, with treatment benefits lasting one to three months in 47% of patients.

(A case series of auricular acupuncture in a veterans population using a revised auricular mapping-diagnostic paradigm (RAMP-uP). Complementary Therapies in Medicine, August 2016.)

A study undertaken in the Emergency Department of a hospital in Tunisia, has found that compared to morphine, acupuncture is associated with more rapid and effective pain relief, and is better tolerated.

Doctors allocated 300 patients with moderate to severe acute pain, to receive either acupuncture or intravenous morphine. Successful analgesia was defined as a drop in pain intensity of at least 50% from baseline. In the acupuncture group, a success rate of 92% was obtained, whereas the corresponding figure in the morphine group was 78%. Pain resolution time was 16 minutes in the acupuncture group, versus 28 minutes in the morphine group. Adverse effects were significantly fewer in the acupuncture group (4) compared with the morphine group (85).

The authors conclude that acupuncture should be considered in today’s increasingly complicated and polymedicated patients to avoid adverse drug reactions.

(Acupuncture versus intravenous morphine in the management of acute pain in the ED. American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 20 July 2016.)

Clinicians in America have found acupuncture to be an acceptable and effective adjunctive technique for reducing pain and anxiety in the hospital accident and emergency department.

In the pilot observational study, retrospective data for 14 months was used to identify 182 patients who had received acupuncture in addition to standard care in the emergency department of Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis. Of these, 52% did not receive painkillers before or during their acupuncture treatment; their average reported decrease in pain was 2.4 points. This compared well with the average 2.8 point pain decrease in those patients who had received painkillers. Additionally though, there was a significant decrease in anxiety scores among the patients who had received acupuncture.

(Acceptability, Adaptation, and Clinical Outcomes of Acupuncture Provided in the Emergency Department: A Retrospective Pilot Study. Pain Medicine, online 25 February 2016.)

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, have shed some light on possible mechanisms behind acupuncture’s ability to alleviate chronic pain. They believe it might re-normalise connectivity between key brain regions involved in pain perception.

The team randomly allocated 44 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee, into one of three groups: high dose acupuncture; low dose acupuncture (fewer needles); sham acupuncture. Each patient received six sessions over a one month period, and to monitor brain activity, three of these sessions were conducted with the patient lying in an fMRI scanner. The scans showed repeated acupuncture sessions changed the connectivity between key brain regions associated with pain learning, memory and chronification, resulting ultimately in the reinstatement of healthy communication between body and brain. Sham acupuncture failed to achieve this effect. The researchers conclude that these results have implications for the assessment of the efficacy of acupuncture treatment with regard to reversal of chronic pain disorders.

(Repeated verum but not placebo acupuncture normalizes connectivity in brain regions dysregulated in chronic pain. NeuroImage: Clinical, September 2015.)

A study undertaken at two emergency dental clinics in São Paulo, Brazil has shown acupuncture to be a useful method of pain control for patients with acute dental pain. A sample of 120 patients, aged between 18 and 90, awaiting emergency treatment, received one acupuncture session. Pain was reduced in all patients, going down from a mean 6.56 to 0.96 on a visual analogue scale.

(Acupuncture in the management of acute dental pain. Journal of Acupuncture & Meridian Studies, April 2014.)