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Acupuncture and Pain Relief

In my later years of medical school, I thought that pain treatment was below me. Even though acupuncture was best known for its effective pain relief, I thought that the Western medical world was simply behind as usual. We were amazed to learned all the other diseases we could treat with acupuncture, like neurological problems, immune system dysfunction, anxiety, and depression, and I thought, “Anyone can treat pain. I’d rather focus on something more interesting.”

As I wrote about Chinese medicine on the Pulse website, I thought, “It would be more beneficial for acupuncture’s image if I focused on something like psychology. And, people really need to understand the complexity and power of our herbal medicine system.”

So talking about the treatment of pain wasn’t really on my list.

Western vs. Eastern Pain Relief But, I couldn’t help seeing that Western medicine didn’t have great pain relief solutions. They always have the side effects of some drugs, and the addictive potential of the opiates (their most powerful pain killers).

My wonderfully well-read wife subscribes to a journal called The Pain Practitioner (www.aapainmanage.org/literature/PainPrac.php). After reading that for a few months, I suddenly realized that they never mentioned acupuncture. That’s crazy, I thought. After all, it competes with drugs in terms of effectiveness and doesn’t cause side effects. Plus, it’s superior in permanently removing neurogenic pain, and preventing temporary pain from going through the “grooved into the brain” process that leads to chronic pain syndromes.

When you think of acupuncture, the first thing that should come to mind is “Superior for treating pain.”

Higher Standards for Pain Relief with Acupuncture I’ve found that many acupuncturists do not enjoy treating pain. I think this may be because they haven’t learned a style of acupuncture that treats pain effectively and quickly. In October 2002, I began a mentorship with Robert Chu, who had learned a quick and powerful pain-relieving acupuncture system from a student of the famous Taiwanese acupuncturist, Master Tong.

Dr. Chu has taught me several acupuncture systems that are not currently taught in acupuncture schools. His goal is immediate pain relief, to some degree, and immediate relaxation or a sense of well being in other diseases.

This is a high standard – we can’t always achieve total pain relief with one treatment. It may take ten treatments to make a permanent dent in some situations. But I like having big goals. I think I’m more likely to make progress that way.

Location and Cause of Pain In the clinic, first we find out where your pain is. If you’ve been in an accident, or there are nerve-related issues, we do a physical examination to discover the nature of the problem. For example, your pain may be due to a problem in the spine, messages from the brain, one of your internal organs, or because you’ve bruised a muscle, tendon, or ligament.

Sometimes, we can’t find an obvious cause, even with X-rays, MRI’s, and lab tests. We have to assume then that the cause is neurogenic- from the brain, nervous system, or even the psyche. Pain can be a manifestation of emotion. There’s nothing wrong, or less valid about that kind of pain.

Actually, Chinese medicine is well-suited to treat that. And people with pain of a psychological origin may find their Western physician less sympathetic, because they always have to look out for addicts. Acupuncture, conversely, can treat addiction.

These are not the only causes of pain. It is important to know the cause, and not just blindly attempt to relieve the symptoms. Otherwise, ineffective treatments could be due to a missed diagnosis. Also, we may approach pain from a vertebral problem differently than we do pain of unknown origin.

Rating the Pain & Measuring Progress For each pain location, I have patients rate the severity on a scale of 1-10. A “10″ would be the worst pain possible, like giving birth or a kidney stone. Once we know the degree of pain for each site, we can assess how much the acupuncture treatment changed it. It’s nice when there’s an immediate improvement of 20-30%, or even 100%, which happens in some cases.

Sometimes, the patient can’t reproduce the pain on the table because of posture, so we have to wait until the treatment is over. If possible, we can needle so that measuring progress is easier. For example, if your pain is worse when walking, we can needle your hand (this is distal needling- needling away from the site of pain- another topic entirely) while you walk around. Then we can tell immediately if we’re on the right track or not.

Complementary Pain Management At the same time, you may do other therapies. You might be looking into surgery, or other solutions- for example, than is a synthetic knee injection for people with very little knee cartilage. The synthetic fluid lasts for several months.

Interestingly, researchers have found that back pain does not always correlate to changes in the spine. They’ve found many people with vertebral problems that have no pain at all, and that some people with constant pain have no obvious structural changes.

To me, this underlines the primacy of the nervous system. Your brain interprets and creates nerve signals. Sometimes pain has to be “unlearned.” This process may be accomplished with acupuncture alone, or in combination with counseling, meditation, or hypnosis.

In some situations, physical rehabilitation is indicated. Specific exercises prescribed by a trained physical therapist may help you regain strength and function in the affected part of the body. You may also avail yourself of the slow, demanding, and healing movements of Taichi.

The Process of Pain Control For some people, pain goes away immediately, and they are otherwise healthy. In that case, their partnership with the acupuncturist may come to an end.

But, others are stuck with chronic pain, and need continual treatment to experience a better quality of life. In these cases, it may be better to see the acupuncturist every other day for concentrated therapy- we’re more likely to shift the body’s neurological patterns that way. If that doesn’t work, the acupuncturist may help you purchase a microcurrent or tens unit- these are electrical stimulator pads that you can use at home (or, in fact, anywhere) to keep the pain at bay. The pads are applied to specific points according to the theories of Chinese medicine.

For those whose pain is cause or greatly influenced by emotional and mental factors, Chinese medicine can recommend dietary changes and new emotional habits. Taichi and meditation can have a normalizing effect on the nervous and immune systems as well.

About the Author

Acupuncturist, herbalist, and medical professor Brian B. Carter founded the alternative health megasite The Pulse of Oriental Medicine (http://www.PulseMed.org/). He is the author of the book “Powerful Body, Peaceful Mind: How to Heal Yourself with Foods, Herbs, and Acupressure” (November, 2004). Brian speaks on radio across the country, and has been quoted and interviewed by Real Simple, Glamour, and ESPN magazines.

Acupuncture and Pain Relief   by Brian B. Carter

Acupuncture, Massage, and Chiropractic for Fibromyalgia

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Acupuncture, Massage, and Chiropractic for Fibromyalgia   by Brian B. Carter, MS, LAc
in Health    (submitted 2004-10-28)

Q: Can accupuncture help with pain of fibromyalgia? About how many treatments can it take to see results and is it helped along if you combine it with massage therapy and chiropractic care? How do I find a reliable one in my area? Thank you, Debra

A: Thanks for the question, Debra.

There’s just one ‘c’ in the spelling of acupuncture. I’m not sure where this double-c misspelling came from.

Acupressure & Tui Na The massage that acupressurists do may or may not be Chinese medicine. If you ever go that route, check into how many years they were formally trained in acupuncture/meridian theory. The standard “real” massage of Chinese medicine is called Tui Na, which means “push and grasp.” More about massage below.

Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine Acupuncture is just one therapy you can get from Chinese medicine practitioners, who are generally called acupuncturists. “Acupuncturist” isn’t a great name, since most of us also are trained in Chinese herbal medicine, cupping, moxibustion, food selection, lifestyle advice, etc. All of these therapies are based on the Chinese medical system.

Accurate Fibromyalgia (FM) Diagnosis I want to make sure you’ve had a doctor spend enough time with you to get you a proper FM diagnosis according to the standardized criteria. Too many doctors just toss this term around without using the criteria (which is unethical – imagine the negative emotional impact – worry, fear, etc. – that it has on patients!) Who knows how many people think they have it, when they really have something else entirely? And so long as they try to treat the wrong thing, they’ll use the wrong remedies, and whatever condition or problem you do have will remain untreated. This is one reason why I advocate seeing health professionals instead of self-care; misdiagnosis leads to the wrong treatment and perhaps even further harm. Read about the criteria for the FM diagnosis here, and make sure they’ve been applied to your case. If they haven’t, get a second opinion!

The Chinese Medicine Treatment of Fibromyalgia I will defer to the experience of my wife, Dr. Lynda Harvey-Carter, since she has helped hundreds of FM/CFS sufferers get better. That information is covered in this Q &A.

The upshot is that 80% of patients experienced marked improvement (decreased chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia symptoms), and 50% said they had been completely cured. This is not an instantaneous process, but most of the patients had experience significant improvement within 3-4 months.

Affordable Fibromyalgia Care I know all of this care costs money. Most patients want to do whatever’s going to be most effective at the least cost. I can’t see any other reason to worry about how many times you’d have to visit an acupuncturist, so I’m going to say more about FM treatment in terms of cost-effectiveness.

Chiropractic for Fibromyalgia? To be quite candid, for the FM sufferer, I’m not convinced that chiropractic is the best way to spend your money. Many FM/CFS sufferers experience greater pain and symptoms after an adjustment. This may be a neccesary part of healing, but if there’s not an x-ray confirmed spinal issue to be addressed, I wouldn’t do it. Though many of them are good and honest, and though I am open-minded about their role in the treatment of non-spinal issues, chiropractors are well-known for their aggressive marketing techniques, so be careful. To be clear: chiropractic may help you. This isn’t my area of expertise.

Massage for Fibromyalgia? Massage can be nice, but I’m not sure it’s the best for FM either. Deep techniques can make FM patients feel worse. The light, soothing, circulatory/Swedish style can relieve stress, and lightening the load on your sympathetic nervous system and adrenals, but there are less expensive relaxation methods. I think the best test is: how long does your relief last? If it’s just a few hours, how much would it cost to maintain that benefit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Acupuncture Treatment for Pain On the other hand, acupuncture has proven its ability to relieve both new and old pain. It is the safest pain relief technique. It is the only pain reliever I know of that can wipe out chronic pain. It works via the nervous and immune systems, which are two major systems that FM/CFS affects. It releases natural opioids that can relieve pain for 1-3 hours (endorphins) and 1-3 days (enkephalins). It also, via some other route, normalizes the way the brain interprets sensations, and erases the grooved in patterns of chronic pain.

Chinese Herbs Chinese herbs, like acupuncture, can work systemically, and/or they can be targeted. Chinese medicine discovers your particular constitution and patterns of imbalance, and seeks to balance them, thus giving the body the strength to restore normalcy.

Working With Medical Professionals Find health practitioners who are qualified AND that you can trust, because they have the training and experience to make accurate diagnoses, choose appropriate remedies, and make the best plan for your healing. Once you’ve found good practitioners, follow their advice. Trying to save money on alternative health care may tempt you to ignore your practitioner’s treatment plan and see them less often than they suggest. Or, you may try to avoid professionals and get your information from magazines (whose number one goal is to sell advertising – thus, they do not go into complex medical issues or therapies in the kind of depth needed for safe and accurate usage of natural medicines, nor do they print articles that compete with or contradict their advertiser’s products).

The Chinese Medicine Fibromyalgia Expert If there is a FM/CFS expert in Chinese medicine, it’s Lynda Harvey-Carter. I haven’t heard of anyone else who’s had as much success. To follow her program, you’ll need to go to a Chinese medicine practitioner for a good 12-16 weekly visits, get herbs and take them religiously, do some counseling on any emotional issues you have (pre-FM, or just dealing with FM),change your diet, take certain nutrients, and get involved in spiritual growth that requires growth of character, trust, surrender, hope, and faith. The patients who were most willing to make the most changes in their lives were most likely to recover completely from their FM.

The other insight that Lynda had about recovery from FM is that the sooner you catch it and treat it, the better recovery you can have. It’s not unheard of for people newly diagnosed with it to get serious about treating it and completely recover. I mean it goes away. For good.

But if you only go halfway, or you wait too long to do something about it, you may be ensuring that you have to put up with this pain for the rest of your life.

How to Find a Good CM Practitioner in Your Area Use my website’s acupuncturist-finding resource (see below). Most people end up at the National database. Remember, when you search your city or state, that although some practitioners have not taken the national herbs test, they may still be trained in, good at, and legally allowed to prescribe Chinese herbs. Many states only look at the acupuncture test, and include Chinese herbs in the acupuncturist’s scope of practice.

A common question patients ask is “how many people have you treated with my disease?” That’s a sensible question, but perhaps not always the best one. Most CM practitioners treat a little bit of everything. Some try to specialize, or end up get referrals for a particular disease, but most are general practitioners. I’d say this is possible because, although CM is quite complex, it is not nearly as complex as most western medicine (WM) specialties. Also, WM specialization has become the norm, and because there are 800,000 of them in the U.S., the may have to specialize! However, there are only about 15,000 acupuncturists here, so we need not, and perhaps cannot specialize yet. Fortunately, we learn enough in school to be good general practitioners, and there are more and more reference books. Many experienced practitioners have shared their successes with the rest of us, and translators are constantly offering English-speaking acupuncturists new Chinese experience or research on many topics.

About the Author

Acupuncturist, herbalist, and medical professor Brian B. Carter founded the alternative health megasite The Pulse of Oriental Medicine (http://www.PulseMed.org/). He is the author of the book “Powerful Body, Peaceful Mind: How to Heal Yourself with Foods, Herbs, and Acupressure” (November, 2004). Brian speaks on radio across the country, and has been quoted and interviewed by Real Simple, Glamour, and ESPN magazines.

Acupuncture, Massage, and Chiropractic for Fibromyalgia   by Brian B. Carter