In the past 20 years, since I was fortunate enough to be part of a sports medicine exchange program to China, we have seen alternative medicine go mainstream, especially in the U.S.A. I believe this is a good thing. Many patients who have not done well with traditional medical interventions have found some relief in the hands of alternative medicine practitioners.
Although "alternative medicine" encompasses a wide range of treatments and approaches, the one area that has made tremendous strides in not only becoming accepted, but also in showing scientific proof of its benefits, is acupuncture.
Acupuncture has been shown to be effective in managing a wide variety of musculoskeletal ailments (i.e. problems with muscles, bones and joints). Done properly, there can be terrific results with minimal, if any, risk.
Scientific research has shown acupuncture to be helpful in the following musculoskeletal conditions and ailments:
- Arthritis
- Back pain
- Neck pain
- Sciatica
- Carpal tunnel syndrome
- Tennis elbow
- Other "pinched nerves"
- Other "chronic pain" situations
A recent study published in the November 2006 issue of the medical journal Arthritis and Rheumatism also got my attention. It was a well-done study from Germany that looked at the role and effectiveness of acupuncture for individuals with chronic hip and knee pain related to arthritis.
A very large group of patients were treated with usual traditional medical care for their arthritis for three months. Following that time period, acupuncture was added as an additional therapeutic intervention for one portion of that patient group, while the others continued with medical care only (i.e. no acupuncture).
The results of the study revealed that those patients who had acupuncture added to their treatment regime had significant and persistent improvements in not only their arthritis symptoms, but also in their overall quality of life. They did much better than those patients receiving medical care only for the arthritis, without acupuncture.
There have been other interesting studies that are allowing us to begin to understand how acupuncture may actually work, and I think you'll see much more of this in the upcoming months and years. Our ability to understand acupuncture's effects was heightened by the invention of the functional MRI (also known as fMRI).
The fMRI is an MRI type machine that actually can show changes in physiology and biochemistry in certain body parts. For example, it can actually show predictable and reproducible changes in very specific areas of the brain when acupuncture needles are placed in appropriate sites around the body. This really opens the door to understanding the capabilities and effectiveness of this ancient healing art.
Have you had acupuncture? For what condition? Did it help? How did you find an appropriately trained and experienced acupuncturist in your area? One of the additional extremely important findings of the acupuncture study mentioned above, was that the most important factor in getting good results with patients were the qualification and clinical experience of the acupuncturist!
Finding the best acupuncturist can be tricky since this whole medical area is relatively new to the U.S.A., and since it has become more mainstream, many are jumping on the bandwagon by taking a course or two, and hanging up a shingle claiming that they are an expert. So it becomes very important to do a little research before getting needled and poked.
