by Dr. Alan Magner
Acupuncture commonly used to treat Low Back Pain
Low back pain and Acupuncture seem to go hand in hand, in that it is the most frequent reason Americans turn to Acupuncture for relief, and the second most common reason to visit their medical doctors.
Oriental acupuncturists have been successfully treating both acute and chronic low back pain for thousands of years. As a result, many acupuncture treatment points have been identified not only on the back itself, but also a number of very potent points on the hands, legs and feet have been located which relate to healing the lower back.
Studies conclude Acupuncture's effectiveness
Last year a study appeared in the “American Annals of Internal Medicine” reviewing 22 prior studies which addressed both the effectiveness for pain control and the overall improvement of low back pain using acupuncture. As often occurs in western trials of alternative health approaches, questions arose as to the level of quality of some of the trials, and whether they reached the standards that double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in western medicine often insist upon. In acupuncture, it is very difficult to create studies that have true placebos. Also, use of “sham-acupuncture”, in which needles are inserted into the skin at non-acupuncture points, may very well cause unexpected effects that interfere with the validity of the study.
Nonetheless, 8 of the 22 studies were regarded in this review as being of high quality, and the overall conclusion was that acupuncture is indeed an effective treatment choice for chronic low back pain. This conclusion has been acknowledged by the World Health Organization. Around the world, especially in England and Germany, more high quality studies are being conducted or are awaiting publication.
Acupuncture provides relief from Low Back Pain
Clinical experience in our office, as well as that of thousands of acupuncturists across America, Europe and the Orient confirms the overall effectiveness of acupuncture for most patients in relieving the discomfort and healing the problem of chronic low back pain.
