Tag Archive for: pain

Transcranial current stimulation

Transcranial current stimulation

Transcranial direct current stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS Therapy) are a trending subject of current studies.

The newly discovered benefits of these therapies include pain relief, treatment for sleep disorders, depression, cognitive enhancement (including speeding up learning, creativity enhancement, and improving mathematical abilities, etc.).

Are these transcranial therapies really novel? These treatments are strikingly similar to a well-established treatment – scalp electroacupuncture.

Scalp electroacupuncture has been used safely and effectively for decades, with numerous studies supporting its benefits for conditions such as

But here’s the best part: scalp acupuncture is much more cost-effective than transcranial therapies.

Brain mapping techniques are becoming cheaper and more accessible. This leads to more studies and a better understanding of the human brain. This will open up opportunities for new treatments using transcranial current stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and even electro-acupuncture. So if you’re looking for an effective and affordable alternative treatment, give electroacupuncture a try!

The image: fibers of the White Matter

Neck pain and headaches

Painkillers make headaches worse, stick with acupuncture!

Painkillers often will make the headaches worse, a general practitioner from UK warns in the official advice from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

“Instead of taking these over-the-counter drugs to combat symptoms when they flare up, sufferers should try treatments that help prevent headaches in the first place – including acupuncture”

(Source: The Telegraph)

In the land of quaint cobblestones and grey skies, the United Kingdom finds itself grappling with a modern-day conundrum: a headache epidemic of sorts. As the afflicted grasp for relief in the form of aspirin, paracetamol, and ibuprofen, they inadvertently dig themselves deeper into the trenches of discomfort. A staggering five in six sufferers are women, with the path to healing obscured by the very medicines they have come to depend on.

With the aim of breaking this insidious cycle, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) advocates a change of approach. Rather than reaching for over-the-counter remedies at the first sign of pain, Nice implores headache sufferers to consider more preventive methods such as acupuncture. To further illuminate the path to relief, Nice unveils new guidance aimed at helping doctors more accurately diagnose and treat the various types of headaches that plague the population.

With nearly a fifth of the adult population in the throes of debilitating headaches, this modern malady is impossible to ignore. Among the afflicted, migraines and tension-type headaches claim the lion’s share, affecting seven million and 1.5 million individuals, respectively. A rare few – 50,000 to 100,000 – are tormented by excruciating ‘cluster’ headaches, while a staggering one million suffer from ‘medication overuse headaches,’ tethered to the very drugs they believed would bring relief.

Dr Manjit Matharu, a consultant neurologist and key figure in crafting the Nice guidelines, warns that patients with frequent tension-type headaches or migraines are particularly vulnerable to falling into a vicious cycle of worsening symptoms. Consuming normal doses of aspirin, paracetamol, or anti-inflammatory painkillers such as ibuprofen for 15 days or more per month could result in medication overuse headaches. This risk remains, he emphasises, even when taking less than the maximum daily dose.

Dr Martin Underwood, a general practitioner and professor of primary care, reiterates this cautionary tale, stating that the only remedy is to cease taking the medications “abruptly.” This, however, is often a bitter pill for patients to swallow, as they must first endure a temporary intensification of their headaches.

In this battle against the throbbing temples, acupuncture emerges as the only treatment with a robust evidence base, often underestimated but proven to have real benefits. Nice has even previously recommended that acupuncture be made available through the NHS for chronic lower back pain and arthritis.

 

Pentagon acupuncture weapon

How Military Pokes Holes In Acupuncture Skeptics’ Theory

acupuncture-skeptic-pain

Acupuncture has made its way into the mainstream in military medicine in USA as a battlefield pain relief.

The explanation why military embraces acupuncture may be simple: “As some top medical officers put it, though, there’s nothing like pain to make someone open-minded

Listen to NPR radio report covering this topic here:

Transcript of the podcast:

And now to a treatment that years ago migrated from China to the U.S. and is now being embraced by America’s military, acupuncture is now among the alternative treatments available to those in uniform. The top brass has told Army doctors to rethink their pill for every ill approach to pain. So for the 47000 troops have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, that means there are other options like massage, chiropractic treatments and especially acupuncture. Blake Farmer of member station WCPN reports.

The military hopes to win over sceptics, many of them in uniform. I’m one of them.

Colonel Rochelle Wasserman is the top doctor for the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

But to her own surprise, she’s also now the unit’s physician, trained to do acupuncture.

I actually had a demonstration of acupuncture on me and not a spring chicken, and it didn’t make me sick again, but it certainly did make me feel better than I had. So I figured, hey, you know, let’s give it a shot with our soldiers here.

In recent years, military doctors have turned to acupuncture and special pain clinics and for troops in battle zones. But last year, the Army surgeon general began making the alternative treatments more widely available.

All right. In a fluorescent-lit exam room, Wasserman sticks ballpoint sized pins in the ears of Sergeant Rick Romelio.

Let’s go ahead and start with the points that we did before in Afghanistan.

Romelio broke his back hip and pelvis during a rollover caused by a pair of rocket-propelled grenades. He still walks with a cane and suffers from mild traumatic brain injury. Pain is an everyday occurrence, which is where the needles come in.

And what would you say was the comfort level while you actually have them in any major problems?

I kind of got treatment and this is the first treatment that I’ve had where I’ve been like, OK, well, you know, I’ve actually seen a really big difference.

Romelio says his headaches have disappeared and he’s relying less on his cabinet full of pain medication. To Colonel Kevin Galloway, that’s mission accomplished. He’s in charge of carrying out the recommendations from the Army’s Pain Management Task Force, which focused heavily on unconventional therapies.

You can throw fairly cheap pharmaceuticals at the problem now and push the problem to someone else later.

If you’re not really working on what the genesis of the pain is, Galloway says if soldiers get hooked on high powered painkillers, the VA may be dealing with the side effects for decades to come. Already, at least 40 per cent of vets entering the VA system are coping with pain.

New academic studies from places like Duke University back up acupuncture as an alternative to medication.

We call that academic medicine when it gets into medical schools. Harriet Hall shares the scepticism found in many corners of the medical community. She’s a former Air Force flight surgeon to the way she reads the science. Acupuncture does no more than a sugar pill to offer a placebo, she says, is unethical.

The military has led the way on trauma care and things like that. But the idea that putting needles in somebody’s ear is going to substitute for things like morphine is just ridiculous.

But to quote some top medical officers, there’s nothing like pain to make someone open-minded. Staff Sergeant Jermaine Lewis says he’s tried at all. Wow.

Physical therapy, occupational therapy, PTSD group, anger group, stress group. You know everything.

Lewis is trying to overcome a traumatic brain injury that followed him home from Iraq five years ago.

He’s still dependent on medication.

And the soon to retire infantryman says he’s scared that I have to be on it for the rest of my life and I will get accustomed just to taking them. And I don’t want to be that way. You know, I want to be normal like everybody else.

But if being normal depends on regular acupuncture treatments, the Defense Department has more convincing to do. Tricare, the military’s own health plan for service members and retirees, still doesn’t cover acupuncture.

For NPR News, I’m Blake Farmer in Nashville.

And this is Morning Edition.

From NPR News, I’m Renee Montagne.