Acupuncture and Nutrition Clinic – Houston

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/AlternativeMedicine/34673

Of course this research comes as no surprise, but it’s nice to read that the authors of a meta-analysis concluded that “acupuncture provides more relief from various types of chronic pain than does usual care and should be considered a valid therapeutic option.” Research based on my patient base suggests the same results.

During my monthly call in radio show, people always have questions on pain. Whether it be neck, shoulder, back or migraine pain, many want to know if there are other options to hydrocodone, topomax, or even extra strength tylenol.

Part of the problem with acupuncture research is that results show benefits but the mechanism of action is very hard to define or measure. In Western style research, scientists like to be able to explain how and why the treatment works. The difficulty in part is trying to measure an abstract form of energy, we can Qi (chi). You can feel Qi, but cannot readily see it or measure it beyond feeling for it in the pulses. In spite of the mechanism of action not being completely understood, results of this study showed that acupuncture treatment for pain relief was statistically better when compared to sham acupuncture and even higher for no acupuncture.

Many researchers like to attribute the beneficial results of acupuncture due to placebo effect. To challenge that point, I often refer to veterinary acupuncture which started many years ago on race horses who were lame. More often than not, the horses and now dogs and cats, move better after being treated with acupuncture. No matter how lovable and smart our animals are, they do not have the capacity to fake it (to please their owners). Either they are limping or they are not after a treatment. The results speak for itself.

Because it is so difficult to define the mechanism of action, many researchers continue to report that treatments remain “highly controversial.” But to be fair, many results are inconclusive due to poor study parameters such as too few subjects and inconsistency of quality and reliability of studies. But it’s also worth considering whether positive results of studies should be disregarded solely due to uncertainty as to mechanisms of action.

This study however, included almost 18,000 subjects and “conducted an individual patient data meta-analysis based exclusively on high quality randomized trials that their findings should be considered “both clinically and scientifically important.” In addition, their finding of “true acupuncture having significantly greater effect than the sham procedure indicates that the effects of the procedure do extend beyond placebo.” They conclude that this is “of major importance for clinical practice,” meaning that acupuncture should be considered “a reasonable referral option for patients with chronic pain.”

Dr. Avins, one of the authors of the study wrote: “The ultimate question is: does this intervention work (or, more completely, do its benefits outweigh its risks and justify its cost)?” “For acupuncture, the current meta-analysis offers “some robust evidence” that acupuncture does provide greater chronic pain relief than usual care, mechanisms of effect aside.”

For many of my patients, this research will be consistent with their experience. But Chinese medicine will only be considered a valid form of medicine with medical doctors when clinically solid studies show clear benefit. More and more studies are being conducted that show thousands of years of medicine from China as being a consistently effective and safe option of treatment for many health concerns. If you are interested in reading more research on acupuncture, you can look at studies from the National Institutes of Health Complementary and Alternative Medicine Office.

The price of Gold: Chinese athletes left with huge spots after ‘cupping’ therapy in quest for Olympic glory
By KATY HASTINGS

Wang Qun’s cupping marks are clear to see while she trains at the National Aquatics Centre with just a few days to the games to go.

It might look like a giant case of chicken pox but in fact this Olympic swimmer is hoping her spots will lead her to a place on the medal podium.

Chinese swimmer Wang Qun was doing some last minute training in Beijing with marks left by cupping – a Chinese medicine technique to relieve ailments including back neck and shoulder pain.

Wang Qun’s cupping marks are clear to see while she trains at the National Aquatics Centre with just a few days to the games to go.
The procedure is said to move the energy, or ‘qi’, in the body and is used widely in folk medicine in eastern European and Asia.
It is performed by placing cups onto the skin by way of either heat or suction.

The spots are a tell tale sign of the treatment.

The swimmer limbers up at the pool following her treatment. The technique is said to help shoulder pain which swimmers in particular can be susceptible to.
The technique works by creating a vacuum inside a cup by inserting a flame, removing it and quickly placing the cup on to the body before the vacuum is lost.

The suction anchors the cup to the body and the skin covered is drawn up into it by a few millimetres.

Cupping is an ancient therapy which is said to help back complaints and draw toxins from the skin.
The cups are left on the body while the area beneath is treated and the energy, or qi, is moved.
Mild reddening is common, however this disappears after a few days.

Gwyneth Paltrow includes cupping as one of the many alternative therapies she uses.
A number of celebrities are fans of this form of acupuncture including Geri Haliwell Paris Hilton and Gwyneth Paltrow – who have even been spotted sporting the tell-tale circular marks herself.
Miss Paltrow made no secret of her preference for the remedy when she appeared at a New York premiere several years ago covered in the large circular spots.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1041370/The-price-Gold-Chinese-athletes-left-huge-spots-cupping-therapy-quest-Olympic-glory.html#ixzz21pBudL6z

Acupuncture cupping is an aspect of Chinese medicine that is frequently used to treat pain as well as internal medicine issues. Cupping traditionally consists of placing glass, plastic or bamboo cups on the skin to create a vacuum seal. A glass cupping seal is created when an alcohol soaked cotton ball is burned and placed inside a cup to remove the air. The cup is then quickly placed on the body which creates the vacuum. This is called fire cupping. Another type of cupping uses plastic cups with a pump to create a seal. I have attached a picture of me in China with a bamboo cup so you can see what it looks like to be “cupped” and a patient in China being treated with plastic cups.

Based on the principles of Chinese Medicine, cupping increases blood flow to the surface of the skin thereby moving pain caused by stuck energy and/or removing toxins causing disease. Cupping has been used for relieving colds, bronchitis and other lung conditions, menstrual pain, and all types of body pain. Chinese medical theory states that stagnation of blood is the cause of pain and many diseases. Cupping thereby moves the stagnation (stuck energy) and promotes the blood flow in the affected areas. When the blood flows there is less pain in the channels being treated.

Cups are applied on acupuncture points on the meridian or channel being affected by pain or disease. It is frequently used in conjunction with acupunture since cupping stimulates circulation and relieves pain and swelling. Cupping is not painful, but patients will feel a tug or pulling sensation under the cups as the vacuum seal is created. Successful cupping will usually leave a bruise on the skin. I remember the press going on about Gwyneth Paltrow attending the Oscars in a backless dress which showed the bruises left by cupping on her back. These bruises go away of course, but it is not uncommon to have them.

I like to do sliding cupping on patients with larger areas of pain. For example: sciatica down the side or back of the leg. Oil is used to moisturize the skin and then a number of cups are placed in the area to be treated. Once the suction cups are in place, I will slide the cups up and down or around the painful area, thereby promoting blood flow in a larger surface area. Usually after the sliding cupping, I will then place acupuncture needles for a complete treatment.

Chinese medicine has been around for thousands of years. The ancient art of Chinese healing is time tested. If you are dealing with hard to treat, stubborn pain that has not been helped with Western medicine practices, you might consider trying Chinese medicine. When we help patients that can only be given drugs by their doctors, it speaks loudly to the power of the needle. Give it a try.

What to do when someone has multiple areas of pain? Fibromyalgia is a good example of pain, aches and muscle soreness all over the body and/or at multiple joints. I recently had a patient come in with back pain, sciatica pain, knee pain, hip pain and neck and shoulder pain. The frequent question being is can more than one area of pain be treated at one time?

Another patient recently reported “I tried acupuncture many, many years ago. It’s probably about 15 years ago. It didn’t seem to do much for me at that time. Since then I’ve tried chiropractic, physical therapy, including epidurals. Epidurals helped me for about a year, but when I took it the second time around it wasn’t much help. So I was wondering if there had been any change in the treatments which could help the pain.”

I told this man that there are variables that can affect outcome. The main variable is how long a patient has had a certain condition. The longer it’s been around, the longer it usually takes to resolve, especially if one wants to do it gently and naturally without the use of drugs or shots. Patients typically come to my office when Western medicine can no longer help beyond giving drugs to alleviate the pain. Many patients do not like the efffects that pain medication or steroids have on their bodies.

Also, with regard to prior experiences with acupuncture, outcomes can be influenced by frequency, proximity of repeat treatments and duration of treatments. For long standing problems, it may not be unusual to need 20 or more treatments. One of my teachers, Dr. Tan, explains acupuncture treatments this way. “Acupuncture is like a therapy. The treatments build on each other over time.” When my patients tell me they feel better after the first treament, I am honest with them and tell them it’s a very good sign they responded so quickly, but “what I can’t promise is how long this treatment is going to hold.” Like chemotherapy or psychotherapy, the treatments build on each other for maximum effectiveness.

Also, one much take into account their age, lifestyle, daily actitivies, exercise, diet and stress. These all affect how the body heals.

So, back to the issue of multiple areas of pain. When there are so many areas that have pain I can either chase the pain and put needles all over the areas of pain or try to come up with a strategy that can efficiently move energy all over while still targeting some areas of pain. So many areas of pain makes me think of Times Square in NYC at rush hour. All lanes in all directions are backed up, everyone’s honking and nothing is moving. My typical approach to this is to create energy flow all over the body and then see what pain is left over. It’s called a global treatment and moves energy at the various levels that it flows in the body.

Because the channel system is a closed circuit system, it’s easy to move all twelve channels with just a few needles. Once energy is moving smoothly, there is less pain and then I will be more inclined to do a targeted treatment of the pain that is left over.

A common question people ask is if I can help with pain that’s been around for many years. I recently received a call asking if acupuncture could help a man who had a twenty year history of back pain. He reported the pain as being on and off over the years until the last two years when it has become more of a chronic problem.

When I hear that a patient has had pain for 20 years on and off, it makes me think of a smoldering flame waiting for a gust of air which then fans the fire (increased pain). I usually ask about the history of auto accidents, falls or physical traumas. Especially when the diagnostic tests such as MRI’s or X-Rays are inconclusive and there is no apparent problem beyond general aging issues with the lumbar vertebrae.

When there has been a history of physical trauma like a serious fall or accident when younger, the tendency is usually to brush it off, especially if all that is felt is a little soreness and achiness. When young, active and busy, life keeps going without paying much attention to general aches and pains. Those aches and pains get better, but perhaps not completely and they smolder just under the surface as the aging process continues. And then 20 years, even 30 years later, all of a sudden, there is a flare up and increase in pain and no recent memory of what could have caused the pain. Sometimes its hard to find an apparent reason for the pain. In reality, the area that was hurt many years before ends up coming back to haunt if it’s not properly addressed at the time of the initial accident. Sometimes all it takes to fan the flame years later is a awkward move or stress and then there’s a flare-up.

The first thing to do when the pain is severe is to go the doctor. You want the diagnostic tests to rule out anything serious and/or to get an idea of what is going on with the low back or area of pain.

When I asked my patient about the diagnostic test results he said “the best they can tell is I got a problem with my L3-4 and L4-5, those discs.”

Lumbar disc problems are the most common cause of low back pain that I see in the clinic. Lumbar 3, 4,5 and the first sacral disc are the usual culprits. Sometimes you get your mid back pain in your thoracic spine area but when it comes to low back pain, that’s really where most of the problem is, quite often from a fall or accident. Frequently when there is no obvious source of pain the doctor will tell the patient it’s age associated arthritis.

So what would I do if you came in with this type of complaint? I would take a history and get a sense of where the pain is. Does it radiate out to your side or to your hip? Does it go down your leg? Does it go down the side of your leg or the back of your leg or is still pretty much located in your low back and buttocks area? Once I have a pretty good idea of the channels that are affected, I will come up with a strategy of points to treat the problem.

Over the years I have received extensive training in various styles of acupuncture. One of the methods is called the Balance Method. In general, the needles rarely get put in at the location of the pain. I will identify the painful channels or meridians and then treat areas opposite and farther away but that have a relationship with the channel(s) that have pain. For example, if the pain is on the lumbar spine and across the low back, I might put some needles in the back of your head to treat the end of the channel where the lumbar pain is and where it mirrors your lower vertebral column. I might also put some needles in your opposite shoulder and upper arm to mirror the buttock or low back or on the hand, behind the knee or side of the ankle that correspond to the channel of pain.

Then we can play show-and-tell and have you move in a way that usually causes pain. We then see what happens to the pain. In the majority of cases, there is relief on the table.

I can generally tell within four to eight treatments if I can help you. I won’t have you come for six months and say, “Oh, by the way, this isn’t working.” I’m pretty clear in terms of being able to help a patient. If a patient is not getting any relief between four and eight treatments, then sometimes surgery is required or another set of diagnostic tests to see if something was overlooked. I have sent patients to a neurosurgeon or for another MRI or X-ray if there’s no relief. I can usually tell by how the patient responds to the acupuncture if this modality is a right fit.

This was a call from one of my monthly radio shows taking call in questions.

“I would like to ask the Acupuncture & Nutrition Clinic if they can help my husband. He is 67 years old and has a lot of hip pain. He is still very active and very much works 40 or 60 hours a week. The pain radiates down the side of his leg into the knee area. Do they think that they might be able to help that?”

Our response: “We treat a lot of hip, low back and sciatic type pain. Pain down the side of the legs does sound like a type of sciatica that’s coming from the low back, maybe the hip. We do treat a lot of sciatica at our clinic. The usual location of needles would be on the opposite shoulder. We would actually needle various joints of the shoulder because that mirror-images the hip and then down the middle of the upper arm to the elbow which would mirror the knee. Once the needles are in we would ask him to move in a way that normally would elicit pain. If it’s better, then we’ve done our job well. If not, we need to go back and reassess our diagnois of the channel problem. Sciatica down the side of the leg is actually a very treatable condition.”

We frequently tell patients to remember that acupuncture is like a therapy: chemotherapy or psychotherapy. The treatments build on each other until the body is able to maintain the “re-routed” circuitry. If someone has had a condition for 20 years, it’ going to take more than a few treatments to make it better. It’s good to be realistic in those expectations.

Even if you think about one month of treatment per year. Obvioiusly that’s a lot of treatments and its doubtful that many treatments would be necessary. But the take home message is about being patient and recognizing that Chinese medicine is a gentle form of medicine that nudges the body to work in a way that it used to know how to do. There is memory. Once you really promote healing in the area that’s hurting or diseased, the body will respond in the majority of cases.

Over the past few months I have seen a significant number of patients with sciatica pain that radiates down either the back of the leg or the side of the leg. I have a pretty good success rate treating sciatica, either with or without accompanying low back pain. However, I can also usually tell within a few treatments whether acupuncture will solve the problem or manage the pain sufficiently. Quite frankly, people come to me to avoid back surgery and a common question is whether or not I think they will need surgery.  The type of acupuncture I do allows me pretty quickly to tell whether or not they need to go back to the neurologist for a re-evaluation.

If there is pain relief on the table and when walking out of the office, the chances are pretty good that acupuncture will work for them. If there is still pain at the next visit, but the intensity, duration, frequency or location of pain is less, then we are on the right track. The patient is usually already more energetic and hopeful due to better sleep and movement with less pain. However, if the pain returns to its original level with no change within 4-6 treatments, it usually means there is a ruptured disk or equivalent. Surgery will more than likely be required.  For those who are not surgical candidates, acupuncture might help reduce the pain to a more manageable level over an extended period of time.

Just this past week I had a man come in who has suffered with sciatica pain down the back of his leg for a few months. A friend suggested he try acupuncture. After the first treatment I was pretty sure he needed to see a medical doctor although the xrays he had were inconclusive. Because his pain was so intense with little relief after the treatment, I referred him to an orthopedic doctor and a neurologist and suggested he go to the one who could see him first. He called a few days later saying he indeed needed surgery for a ruptured disk.

The good news is that most of the patients who come in get relief.  One of my favorite sciatica stories is of a woman who had been plagued by leg pain down the side of her leg for twelve (12) years. She had stopped traveling, was unable to play with her grandchildren and was in chronic pain. After 5-6 treatments, her pain was significantly reduced and within a few months she was pain free. She has since traveled abroad and within the U.S., plays with her grandchildren and has a full life of movement without pain. She still comes in for maintenance treatment every few months. She has been virtually pain free for 4 years.