Acupuncture Reduces Chronic Pain

I think we can all agree that chronic pain is no fun, and very often the side effects of the medications can be almost as bad as the original pain. Fortunately, a comprehensive analysis of 29 different studies from the UK, America, Germany, Sweden and Spain gave acupuncture the thumbs up for helping to relieve chronic pain. Together, these studies looked at the outcomes of almost 18,000 patients.

Andrew Vickers, an attending research methodologist and statistician at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York City said "We looked at only the best-quality studies", "so I can say with confidence that what we found is the strongest evidence to date supporting the effectiveness of acupuncture."

The study appeared online Sept. 10 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The new study looked at the effect of acupuncture treatment on four different forms of chronic pain that had lasted for at least one month: shoulder pain, chronic headaches and migraines, osteoarthritis and neck and back pain.

The studies included in the review were all randomised controlled trials and they all included comparing the results of acupuncture treatment, "sham acupuncture" and normal Western Medicine care, without any acupuncture. The "sham acupuncture" used retractable needles, or needles inserted very superficially.

The study showed very clearly that acupuncture produced better results than the "sham acupuncture" or the treatment with no acupuncture.

Andrew Vickers and his colleagues said that "generally speaking, if a patient was to go on to experience a 30 percent drop in pain while undergoing standard care with no acupuncture intervention, those undergoing "sham acupuncture" seemed to experience about a 43 percent drop, while true acupuncture patients experienced a 50 percent fall-off."

Although the difference between the results of the real and the sham acupuncture appeared to be relatively small the authors stressed "that the real-world choice patients face is not between acupuncture or fake acupuncture but rather between acupuncture or no acupuncture at all". In that this context they suggested that their findings are "of major importance for clinical practice."

"Basically what we see here is that the pain relief difference from acupuncture versus no acupuncture is notable, and important, and difficult to ignore," Vickers said.

All in all then, a good result for acupuncture treatment, and without the side effects of pharmaceuticals!

Read More Here: Acupuncture Reduces Chronic Pain