A study comparing the treatment of chronic low back pain using general acupuncture, individually prescribed acupuncture, acupuncture that didn’t pierce the skin (but poked the acupuncture “points”) or contemporary medical treatment suggests that acupuncture can help, and that you don’t need to pierce the skin.
I’ve only come across this brief Reuters report and haven’t found the full study yet, but if accurate it puts an interesting spin on the theory that the needles affect the fascia, and the idea that those fascial cells communicate across wide distances.
Links:
Reuters: Acupuncture, real or fake, helps aching back: study
International Fascia Research Congress
Comments
3 responses to “Needle or toothpick, acupuncture helps”
Accupressure has been used for a long while Sam. I’ve use it a lot for Myofascial release with things like trigger points. It can work on the PAG by creating a noxious stimulus and subsequent endogenous opioid release.
So do acupressure and acupuncture work through the same mechanism or through different mechanisms?
It all depends on how you perceive Acupuncture to work…Essentially no-one really knows. They both affect release of endogenous opioid’s but whether they affect Chi and the various organ lines etc???!?!?!? I have a book on it somewhere so I’ll dig it out and lend it to you. It’s acupoints for therapists and martial artists so it’s quite good. Looks at western and eastern philosophies.
You can get non-invasive acupoint stimulators that use small currents (like TEN’s currents) to stimulate the nerve endings.
I’ll look for that book for you