Acupuncture, Real or Fake, Eases Back Pain
Posted by Dr. G. Ken Smith on 2010-02-11 17:40:23
Tuesday, May 12 (HealthDay News) -- Any kind of acupunture, whether it pierced the skin or not, eased chronic lower back pain in a group of adult patients.
"All were superior to usual care," said Daniel Cherkin, lead author of a report published in the May 11 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine." "Acupuncture is an effective treatment for chronic back pain. People receiving acupuncture are more likely to get better."
But the unusual finding that non-penetrating acupuncture did as well as acupuncture that used standard needles will raise questions about how this works, added Cherkin, who is a senior investigator with the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle.
Janet Konefal, a licensed acupuncturist and assistant dean for complementary and integrative medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said she was not suprised that non-puncture stimulation had equal effects.
"You can stimulate a point with pressure, needle, electricity, even now with laser light and different frequencies of laser light," she said. '''Pecking' on a point is a Japanese technique for stimulation. You might use that with someone who is older or weak in their constitution. That could explain why two different methods of stimulation work equally well."
Acupuncture of all types is "well on its way to the mainstream," Konefal said. "When we understand that different stimulations may be effective rather than doing deep-needle stimulation which, for some people when in pain can be painful, we can now use laser or light needling or even just electric stimulation on the points; I think that part is great."