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Acupuncture to the rescue — 23 Comments

  1. I mercilessly mock and ridicule all practitioners and consumers of medical quackery.

    I don’t laugh at accupuncture. I would do it.

    I’m glad you’ve found some relief and I hope it continues.

  2. Thank goodness!

    My dad swears by massage– enough so that my sister, who but for a phobia of other folks’ blood would’ve been a nurse, went into therapeutic massage.

    I’ve got a thing about needles, but I’ll be sure to pass on the recomendation– treatments done at different places, right?

  3. Naloxone- the same opioid blocker they use to stop a narcotics overdose- also prevents acupuncture from working. It’s doing something, and while I highly doubt it’s manipulating life force, it’s something real.

    Pain is a very complex and cryptic beast, neurologically speaking. You’d think it would be the most straightforward of sensations, but quite the opposite turns out to be true.

  4. The brain, desperate to be rid of the additional burden of relaying pain signals, notes that something different is being tried.

    And the signals diminish.

    Maybe it’s an expansion of the placebo effect. But the fact is, we don’t understand that any better than we understand acupuncture.

    I’m going with “Whatever works.”

  5. Acupuncture sounds like a lot of hoo-hah, but somehow it works some times.

    I have a friend who does cranial-sacral massage which also lacks scientific support, but dang it, she can put me out like a light in a matter of minutes with only the slightest of pressure on the back of my head.

  6. You missed this recent story, neo

    http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/08/27/imaging-sheds-light-on-how-acupuncture-works.html

    “Using positron emission tomography scans of the brain” researchers found “…(acupuncture) increases the binding availability of mu-opioid receptors in regions of the brain that process and weaken pain signals — specifically the cingulate, insula, caudate, thalamus and amygdala. By directly stimulating these chemicals, acupuncture can affect the brain’s long-term ability to regulate pain, the study found.

  7. Neo,
    I used to get sharp back pain, and learned to alleviate it by steady breathing and relaxing my back. It was like sending waves down my spine while lying down. I believe acupuncture maybe helps that, and while it doesn’t fix the problem, it lessens the pain and gives the damaged tissue a chance to heal.
    That was 15 years ago, now I have to get to work on the stone wall I’m building in my garden!
    Good luck with your knee-o…

  8. Glad you found a cure for your pain. Myself, I never tried acupuncture, but had met a few really good massage therapists. Few is the operating word. But those few were really a miracle workers.

  9. Hi Neo,

    If you would like to see an alternative practitioner who is a little closer to mainstream medicine, you might try getting a consultation from someone who does “Prolotherapy”.

    This therapy only does one thing, but it seems to do it pretty well. It fixes broken/stretched ligaments and tendons. The practitioner is always (by law) an MD or DO who has learned a new skill.

    Of course, if you don’t have an injured tendon or ligament, then this won’t help.

    I had one in Denver fix a torn shoulder ligament for me one time. It was also a 10 year old injury. I can’t recommend it enough.

    James

  10. James, thank you for the prolotherapy idea. I have tennis elbow and chronic foot pain from a broken leg. Physical therapy is helping, but after researching the prolotherapy I think I will give it a try.

  11. Neo (and other fellow chronic pain sufferers): I found the description of this device today. I never knew the ultrasound devices are available for home use; physical therapists in NY never use it, and it seems never heard of them. Back in Russia (20 yrs ago) it was a common method of alleviating pain that therapists prescribed – but only applied by professionals in medical clinic.

    Apparently, they are selling in US like hot cakes since the 90s!

  12. The first time I had acupuncture it wasn’t for anything specific. I had a good friend who had played drums on a lot of my recording session when he lived in Denver. In California he was a macrobiotic practitioner and his wife was a certified acupuncturist. She offered a treatment and being wiling to try anything once I took her up on it. The thing that amazed me was how relaxing it was (though that wasn’t anticipated when she said the first needle was going into my forehead). From that point on I was really open to it and have since become a true believer.

  13. James,

    I’ve done multiple prolo visits for my knees with only so-so results. But the newer Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) sounds promising. Even if it’s more (alot more) expensive. I’ve done PRP on my back (after months of physical therapy with only slight improvement) and there was a noticeable difference on the positive side.

  14. Donna B-
    cool, it seems to boil down to: “the mind works, but we have no idea exactly why– some PLACES, the drug works better, other places it doesn’t, some people get bennies from both and there’s some judging issues involved, too.”

    I do love that they ID’ed the anti version, the nocebo– which I’ve seen in action. (“This is going to hurt” and it is hugely painful…before you’re touched.)

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