Acupuncture Reduces Back Pain Better than Drugs, Exercise

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Acupuncture Reduces Back Pain Better than Drugs, Exercise

Effectiveness of acupuncture for back pain increases with time

The report -- published in the British Medical Journal -- studied 241 back pain sufferers over the course of two years. The patients were divided into two groups, both of which underwent traditional treatments for lower back pain such as medication, physical therapy and exercise. One group also received 10 acupuncture sessions -- the ancient Chinese art that involves placing fine needles at specific meridians of the body -- over a three-month period.

The researchers surveyed the patients for satisfaction and pain levels, and after three months there was almost no difference between the two groups. By the 12-month follow-up, the acupuncture group showed a minor improvement over the traditionally treated group, and by the 24-month mark, the difference between the two groups was greater.

"That's a remarkable finding, in that normally you would expect the benefit of the treatment to wear off," researcher Hugh Macpherson said. "This is the first study to show this growing gap up to the two-year point. It is quite unique in that sense."

The researchers also performed a separate cost-analysis study in which they discovered the average price of treating the traditional group was $647, while adding the acupuncture regimen only increased the treatment costs to $863, leading them to conclude the treatments are cost-effective.

Experts say lower back pain is not only one of the most common medical complaints, but is also a leading cause of workers calling in sick.

Can Acupuncture Help Weight Loss? (press release)

This is why more and more, people are turning to acupuncture weight loss treatments to try to handle their weight problem once and for all.

Acupuncture is a practice that is more than 5,000 years old, significantly older than Western medicinal therapies and practices.

Acupuncture weight loss treatment involves what most people think of when they think about acupuncture. Inserting hair-thin needles into particular spots on the skin that are believed to help the body function properly.

Acupuncture stimulates the body to release endorphins, the body's own "feel-good" pain-relieving chemicals. It may be that one way acupuncture weight loss treatments help control appetite is by releasing endorphins.

In the case of overweight patients, the acupuncture specialist will first ask a variety of questions and perform an examination. The purpose is to understand the main causes of the person's excess weight. Perhaps it is merely behavioral, or there could be a physiological reason as well.

Once the root causes of the problem are identified, the acupuncture specialist will then insert needles into different areas of the body in order to help improve the body's functioning in a way that will promote weight loss.

For example, an acupuncture specialist who is doing acupuncture weight loss treatment for a patient will probably use a multi-targeted approach. They may attempt to lower the body's weight by increasing the output of the pituitary gland.

They would also probably work on reducing cravings for certain foods or they would attempt to encourage a decrease in natural appetite. Certain needle placements are even thought to lower insulin levels or lipid levels in the blood.

A benefit of acupuncture weight loss treatment is that unlike certain medications, there are no harmful side effects and no chance for addiction. It is a perfectly natural means of boosting the patient's weight loss efforts.

Acupuncture weight loss treatments need to be repeated on a rather regular basis in order to maintain the effects. However, the acupuncture specialist will instruct the patient that the treatment on its own is not likely to be enough to result in long term, permanent weight loss.

Attention should also be paid to diet and exercise. The acupuncture specialist may provide the patient with certain guidelines as to what to avoid eating in order to promote the regular flow of energy throughout the body as well.

Chiropractic and acupuncture help with back pain, but a real cure requires flexibility and strength training

I have far more experience in this area than I ever wished for. As a chronic sufferer of back pain for nearly a decade, I tried all the "easy" ways to get rid of it: inversion, chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage therapy, herbs, fitness and nutrition. None of them worked for me initially, but that was largely due to the fact that I didn't take any of them seriously. In other words, I might lift weights once a week, or stretch out once a week, or take a couple of herb capsules, or receive acupuncture treatment once a week, and so on. But I never did anything "all the way."

In time, the chronic pain just got worse. I eventually got to the point where I couldn't sit down for more than 30 minutes at a time without devastating pain in my lower back. And I was only in my 20's. I could see the future, and it didn't look pretty.

So I got serious about physical exercise. I got serious about improving my diet and supplementing with superfoods. I began a program of flexibility training: 20 minutes each day at first, then slowly expanding to 40 minutes each day over the course of around two years. I also started a very difficult strength training program designed to strengthen my lower back, abdominal muscles, and everything along my spine. On the side, I began daily joint rotation practices, dabbled with Pilates and Tai Chi, and started receiving chiropractic care once each week.

The result? Today I am 100% free of back pain. I went from chronic pain to zero pain, without drugs or surgery. In fact, I did it without the help of a single doctor. How did I do it? Primarily through strength training and flexibility training. Most lower back pain, I've since learned, is actually caused by weak muscles that frequently spasm. (This is true even if your pain has been diagnosed as a so-called "physical deformity" by a doctor, which is almost universally hogwash, by the way. That's a term that doctors just pull out of thin air went they don't know what's causing the pain.) You see, if your back and pelvis aren't flexible enough, everyday activities like sitting can create enormous tension in your lower back due to fundamental body mechanics, and that tension causes the muscles to go into spasm. When those muscles are sufficiently strengthened, they can carry a lot more weight, meaning that your body weight seems light in comparison. Also, the more flexible you are, the easier it is for your muscles to hold you upright, further reducing the chance of pain.

But here's the hard part: I had to train every day for nearly 12 months before my pain really disappeared. That's 300 days or strength training and flexibility training without knowing whether I was getting any better. It takes tremendous discipline to undertake that sort of physical training but I now believe that it is precisely this sort of program that would prevent and even cure back pain in more than 90% of those who suffer from it. Most people, though, won't commit to strength and flexibility training for a full year just to see results. They want results now! They just want the pain to go away, and so they go to their doctor and demand prescription strength painkillers.

Once the pain is masked with drugs, you're really in trouble. Now you're not receiving the signals from your body that should be telling you to exercise. Now, with the pain gone, many people just return to their sedentary lifestyle, ignoring the need to use their bodies in order to keep them healthy. At the same time, the prescription drugs are devastating their liver organs or, frequently, creating a physiological addiction to pain medication. It's a downward spiral.

The only way to halt that spiral is to make the tough decisions: reprioritize your life. Get to the gym every single day. Work your abs and your back as best you can, and incrementally increase the weight you use. Today, I do back extensions while carrying a 120-lb. barbell. When your back muscles can easily lift your body weight plus 120 pounds, you can bet it's easy for them to hold your spine up in a chair. Hence no back pain.

Another tip: never sit in chairs. Always sit on stools or benches. This way, you're relying on your own muscles to keep you upright. Never get lazy and allow the back of a chair to hold you up. In this way, chairs actually promote chronic back pain, and airplane seats are the worst of all -- they're actually shaped in a manner that causes spinal pain!

Also, the strength training and flexibility training applies to you regardless of your sex. Most men will lift weights, but they won't stretch out. Most women will stretch, but they refuse to lift weights. You need both in order to be strong, flexible and pain free. This applies no matter what your age. In fact, the older you are the more you need strength training just to keep your bone density high.

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Acupuncture Relieves Symptoms of Fibromyalgia (press release)

Fibromyalgia is a disorder considered disabling by many, and is characterized by chronic, widespread musculoskeletal pain and symptoms such as fatigue, joint stiffness and sleep disturbance. No cure is known and available treatments are only partially effective.

Mayo’s study involved 50 fibromyalgia patients enrolled in a randomized, controlled trial to determine if acupuncture improved their symptoms. Symptoms of patients who received acupuncture significantly improved compared with the control group, according to the study published in the June issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

“The results of the study convince me there is something more than the placebo effect to acupuncture,” says David Martin, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the acupuncture article and a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist. “It affirms a lot of clinical impressions that this complementary medical technique is helpful for patients.”

Increasingly, patients are interested in pursuing complementary medicine techniques in conjunction with their mainstream medical care, Dr. Martin says. But often, such techniques lack scientific evidence to justify a patient’s expense and time.

The study lends credence to patients’ belief that nontraditional methods may improve their health. In Mayo’s trial, patients who received acupuncture to counter their fibromyalgia symptoms reported improvement in fatigue and anxiety, among other symptoms. Acupuncture was well tolerated, with minimal side effects.

Mayo’s acupuncture study is one of only three randomized and controlled studies involving fibromyalgia patients. Of the other studies, one found acupuncture to be helpful, while the other reported it was ineffective for pain relief.

Dr. Martin says Mayo’s study demonstrates that acupuncture is helpful, and also proves physicians can conduct a rigorous, controlled acupuncture study. Future research could help physicians understand which medical conditions respond best to acupuncture, how to apply it to best relieve symptoms, and how long patients can expect to their symptoms to decrease after each treatment.