Tag Archive for: pain

Acupuncture pain anesthesia

Acupuncture anesthesia for open heart surgery

The use of acupuncture anaesthesia for open heart surgery was introduced in China four decades ago.  Although the use of it has declined in recent years, there is a renewed interest for it in China. The main reason is the escalating medical costs associated with open heart surgery.

This study designed by scientists from China and USA (Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Shu Guang Hospital and George Washington University, Washington, USA) has shed some light on a combined approach of acupuncture plus local anaesthesia in patients undergoing open heart operation under cardiopulmonary bypass.

Compared with the general anaesthesia patients, the acupuncture and local anaesthesia patients used less narcotic drugs. Additionally, they stayed shorter in the intensive care unit.  Surprisingly, they also had less postoperative pulmonary infection. Using acupuncture to aid with open heart surgery reduced cost of the treatment significantly.

The results of the study were published in the current issue of International Journal of Cardiology.

Carpal tunnel acupuncture

Carpal Tunnel and acupuncture

Short-term acupuncture treatment may result in long-term improvement in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome patients. That’s the conclusion of a study published in the November issue of the Journal of Pain.

The researchers have followed up patients with carpal tunnel syndrome after 7 and 13 months. The patients were divided into two groups. One group of patients had taken steroids for one month. Another group had one moth of acupuncture. The acupuncture group had a significantly better improvement throughout the 1-year follow-up period.

The findings are in line with research on Carpal Tunnel syndrome and acupuncture published in The Clinical journal of pain in 2009.
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At World Congress of Pain held in Montréal: Acupuncture for Pain (II)

Pain and acupuncture

At World Congress of Pain held in Montréal, Canada, Acupuncture was featured in numerous presentations. Furthermore, it was also spotlighted in the plenary session.

Neuroscientist Ji-sheng Han, director of the Neuroscience Research Institute at Peking University and founder of the Chinese Association for the Study of Pain talked about his new studies and perspective on evaluating acupuncture vs placebo:

Just inserting needles under the skin does not work, at least not in rats, which are impervious to sham treatments that can nonetheless get results (placebo) in humans. Read more