Acupuncture for Pain Relief
For thousands of years, stemming from traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture has been believed to reduce pain. Today, although it is still considered an alternative therapy rather than conventional medicine, acupuncture in Gainesville, FL helps many patients cope and find relief from acute and chronic pain. For some people, it may even reduce the need for prescription pain medications such as opioids. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that all patients respond differently, some better than others.
How Acupuncture Can Help
In traditional Chinese Medicine, illness and pain occur when the normal flow of the body’s vital energy, qi, is obstructed. Gainesville acupuncture attempts to stimulate the circulation of blood and qi throughout the body by inserting and gently twisting thin needles in specific sites of the body called acupoints. This can also release endorphins, the body’s natural analgesic, and affect the part of the brain that governs serotonin, a chemical associated with mood.
A study conducted at Harbor-UCLA found that a specific technique of manual acupuncture combined with electrical heat significantly increased the local release of nitric oxide, which plays a role in pain relief, at the acupoints. Another study assigned acupuncture treatment to patients of moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis who had never had acupuncture before. MRI analyses found significant improvement in functional connectivity in the brain centers associated with pain processing and control. If you suffer from low back pain, headaches, menstrual cramps, fibromyalgia, shingles, or other conditions of acute or chronic pain, Gainesville, FL, acupuncture could help you.
What Recent Research Says
The National Institute for Health Research in the United Kingdom recently funded a review of clinical trials using acupuncture to treat pain on about 18,000 patients. Researchers compared true acupuncture with sham acupuncture and standard medical care (no acupuncture) and synthesized the evidence. For headaches, musculoskeletal conditions, and knee osteoarthritis, acupuncture showed better statistical results than usual care and sham acupuncture. The difference was more significant between true acupuncture and usual care than between true and sham acupuncture, probably because of the placebo effect associated with most types of physical treatments.
Chronic Pain Management
Controlling chronic pain is not simple. It often requires the time and collaboration of experts and more than a single supplement, device, or form of treatment. Some cases may require you to integrate acupuncture and other methods of Gainesville holistic medicine with your overall pain management plan. The way your body responds to alternative medicine also depends on your reasons for seeking it and pre-existing conditions. For instance, acupuncture relies on the nervous system to produce its effect, so patients with neuropathies may not be as responsive. Schedule a consultation with a Gainesville acupuncturist to find out how you could benefit from acupuncture by discussing your specific needs.
At Gainesville Holistic Healthcare, we understand that when you’re in pain, your entire quality of life suffers — your sleep is disrupted, exercise becomes difficult or impossible, and just getting out of bed in the morning can be a challenge.
We’re here to help. In study after study, Acupuncture has been shown to be incredibly effective in treating all types of Acute and Chronic Pain.
What Types of Pain can be Treated?
- Arthritis
- Bursitis / Tendonitis
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Diabetic Neuropathy
- Fibromyalgia
- Joint Pain/Stiffness – Neck, Shoulder, Knees, Wrists, Elbows, Ankles, Back, Hips
- Migraine / Headache
- Muscle Pain / Cramps / Spasms
- Plantar Fasciitis
- Sciatica
- Shingles
- TMJ / Bell’s Palsy
Resources
BACKGROUND:
Although acupuncture has been widely used for complementary therapeutic approaches to treat inflammatory diseases and inflammation-induced pain, the potential anti-inflammatory effects of acupuncture treatment remain controversial in clinical trials, and the underlying mechanisms are still unclear…
BACKGROUND:
Although acupuncture is widely used for chronic pain, there remains considerable controversy as to its value. We aimed to determine the effect size of acupuncture for 4 chronic pain conditions: back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache, and shoulder pain…
The objectives of this study were to assess the effectiveness and efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of neck pain.
Responses to acupuncture were studied in 30 patients with acute sciatica. Objective and subjective criteria were analyzed before treatment and after five sessions of acupuncture.
BACKGROUND:
Acupuncture is widely used by patients with low back pain, although its effectiveness is unclear. We investigated the efficacy of acupuncture compared with minimal acupuncture and with no acupuncture in patients with chronic low back pain…
OBJECTIVE:
To compare therapeutic effects of electroacupuncture and TENS on senile radical sciatica…
OBJECTIVE:
To investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture in addition to routine care, compared with routine care alone, in the treatment of patients with chronic pain due to osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee or hip…
OBJECTIVE:
To observe the effectiveness of acupuncture applied to the cervical region of patients with upper extremity radicular symptoms due to cervical spondylotic radiculopathy (CSR)…
CONTEXT:
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a prevalent musculoskeletal disorder associated with pain, mood state alteration, and disability. A structured and effective treatment plan for palliative care has not been established. The genesis of FMS is not clear. FMS occurs primarily in adult women…
BACKGROUND:
Acupuncture is often used for tension-type headache prophylaxis but its effectiveness is still controversial. This review (along with a companion review on ‘Acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis’) represents an updated version of a Cochrane review originally published in Issue 1, 2001, of The Cochrane Library…
OBJECTIVE:
To discuss the results of a multicenter randomized controlled trial of the efficacy of verum acupuncture in treating acute migraine attacks…