WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The use of acupuncture before and during
surgery reduces patients' post-operative pain as well as the need for
pain-killing medication, researchers said on Tuesday. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina
analyzed the results of 15 clinical trials on the effectiveness of
acupuncture -- a practice that originated in China of inserting thin
needles into specific body points. They concluded that it is valuable for pain control in surgery patients.
The 15 trials showed that patients getting acupuncture before or
during various types of operations had significantly less pain
afterward than patients who did not get acupuncture.
These patients also required less morphine or other opioid pain
medication after surgery, which reduced the side effects like nausea
and vomiting from these types of drugs, the researchers said.
In terms of pain-drug side effects, the acupuncture patients
experienced 1.5 times lower rates of nausea, 1.6 times fewer reports of
dizziness and 3.5 times fewer cases of urinary retention compared to
the other patients, the study found.
These findings augment a growing body of evidence on the value of
acupuncture in improving the surgical experience for patients, the
researchers said.
For instance, the National Institutes of Health says that
acupuncture has also been shown to reduce nausea after chemotherapy and
surgery.
"The use of acupuncture is still very under-appreciated," Dr.
Tong-Joo Gan, vice chairman of Duke's anesthesiology department, said
in a telephone interview.
"Western doctors are typically not trained (in acupuncture) and they
really are not familiar with how it works," Gan said. "I think
practitioners such as surgeons and anesthesiologists need to have an
open mind."
He said numerous studies have looked at acupuncture to reduce
post-operative pain, but many of them were not very well done. Gan said
his team identified a group of well-controlled studies to judge how
well acupuncture worked.
"I do it all the time," Gan said. "You give patients the acupuncture
about half an hour before surgery and continue during surgery. It can
reduce post-operative pain."
According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, scientists do
not fully understand how acupuncture works, believing it might help the
activity of the body's pain-killing chemicals or affect the regulation
of blood pressure and flow.
"I think it is generally applicable to a number of different
procedures," Gan said. "In the studies, we looked at abdominal
procedures, orthopedic procedures, gynecological procedures."
The research was presented at a conference of the American Society for Anesthesiology in San Francisco.
Reuters
This is an excellent example of what is called Integrative Medicine, that is attempting to use both Eastern and Western medicine. The famous medical doctor and acupuncturist, Dr. Van Nighi said, "There is not Eastern medicine and Western medicine, there is only One Medicine." He practiced acupuncture and medicne in hospitals in France. In this country we have a long road to reach that level of integration but these studies are welcome.
Western medicine doggedly sticks to the proposition that if you can't pick it up and cut it out it doesn't exist. I experience body energy in much the same way I experience the personalities of people I meet. Personality cannot be quantified but who would deny that there is such a thing? The ancient Chinese, along with the traditional healers of many traditions, understood body energetics and learned how to manipulate it for the benefit of patients. Elmer Green, PhD, developed biofeedback which measures many subtle body functions using electronic gear. He said that whatever was going on with acupuncture was happening at a frequency above any known to science, and that is not measurable with current instruments.
One study from Australia, stimulated acupuncture points in the foot with a laser and found that there was a specific reaction in the brain that happened faster than the speed of conduction of electricity. Hmm.
Dr. Manlove
© 2009 George Manlove, DC All rights
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