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September 21, 2013 by admin
Source: National Cancer Institute
https://www.acufinder.com/Acupuncture+Information/Detail/Acupuncture+Shows+Promise+in+Cancer+Treatment
There have been many advances in the early detection and treatment of cancer. While the standard medical care for cancer is effective, the treatments are aggressive and cause numerous unwanted side effects as well as a lowered immune system. Acupuncture has received much attention as an adjunctive therapy in cancer treatments for its use in pain relief, reducing side effects, accelerating recovery and improving quality of life.
What Acupuncture is used for during Cancer Treatment
Acupuncture provides a total approach to health care for people with cancer. It can be used to address many of the concerns that come up during and after chemotherapy, radiation, biological therapy and surgery.
According to the National Cancer Institute, acupuncture may cause physical responses in nerve cells, the pituitary gland, and parts of the brain. These responses can cause the body to release proteins, hormones, and brain chemicals that control a number of body functions. It is proposed that, by these actions, acupuncture affects blood pressure and body temperature, boosts immune system activity, and causes the body’s natural painkillers, such as endorphins, to be released.
Areas that acupuncture has shown the most promise include:
Nausea and Vomiting
Dry Mouth, Night Sweats and Hot Flashes
Stress, Anxiety and Fatigue
Pain Management
Increasing White Blood Cell Count
Nausea and Vomiting
The strongest evidence of the effect of acupuncture has come from clinical trials on the use of acupuncture to relieve nausea and vomiting. Several types of clinical trials using different acupuncture methods showed acupuncture reduced nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy, surgery, and morning sickness. It appears to be more effective in preventing vomiting than in reducing nausea. Studies have shown that, for many patients, treatment with acupuncture either relieves symptoms or keeps them from getting worse.
Boosting the Immune System
Human studies on the effect of acupuncture on the immune system of cancer patients showed that it improved immune system response, including increasing the number of white blood cells.
Pain Management
In clinical studies, acupuncture reduced the amount of pain in some cancer patients. In one study, most of the patients treated with acupuncture were able to stop taking drugs for pain relief or to take smaller doses.
Acupuncture is also very useful for support if you are undergoing chemotherapy, radiation, or hormonal therapy. Because chemotherapy and radiation therapy weaken the body’s immune system, a strict clean needle method must be used when acupuncture treatment is given to cancer patients.
September 21, 2013 by admin
Source: ABCNews
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news%2Fhealth&id=8553663
Battling cancer is a difficult struggle on its own, but when the side effects of the treatment interfere with quality of life, simple, everyday tasks can become a challenge. Now a new bi-national study done here and in China shows how acupuncture is being used to fix a common side effect of getting radiation to the head and neck for cancer.
Bastiaan Boll has been battling head and neck cancer since his diagnosis back in December 2010. But the radiation used to battle his cancer came with an awful side effect — xerostomia — or chronic dry mouth.
Desperate for help, he was enrolled in a study using acupuncture to treat radiation-induced dry mouth.
“I believe this will become the new standard of care for patients with this condition,” Lorenzo Cohen, PhD Anderson Cancer Center, said.
Dr. Cohen, a professor in M.D. Anderson’s Departments of Oncology and Behavioral Science, says using acupuncture alongside radiotherapy helps reduce the severity of this condition.
“As soon as three weeks into the radiation treatment, there was much more saliva flow in the patients who were getting acupuncture,” Cohen said.
“I don’t feel a thing. I don’t feel a thing,” Boll said.
It’s made a tremendous difference in Boll’s life. His appetite has returned and eating is no longer an exhausting chore. “The biggest thing for me was I wanted to be able to taste food to stay interested in eating,” Boll said. “Within a month, he was back to doing his own schedule and what he was supposed to be doing and we have nothing else to attribute it to than the treatment he got here, especially the acupuncture,” Colleen Passero, Bastiaan’s wife, said.
And there’s more.
“Not only did the patients have improved symptoms, specifically about dry mouth, but they also reported overall better quality of life,” Dr. Cohen said. Patients in the study received acupuncture therapy three times per week during the 7-week course of radiation. Researchers say they had dramatically lower cases of dry mouth compared to patients not using acupuncture.
September 18, 2013 by admin
Source: Pacific College of Oriental Medicine
http://www.pacificcollege.edu/acupuncture-massage-news/articles/872-acupuncture-for-seasonal-allergies.html
Commonly called hay fever or allergic rhinitis, a seasonal allergy is an allergic reaction to a trigger that is typically only present for part of the year, such as spring or fall. Pollens that are spread by the wind are usually the main cause of seasonal allergies. People who are allergic to pollen are also often sensitive to mold, ragweed, dust mites, and animal dander. About 26 million Americans endure chronic seasonal allergies, while the number of people with milder symptoms may be as high as 40 million, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
While there are many Western medications to treat the symptoms of seasonal allergies, these treatments can cause unwanted side effects, such as drowsiness and immune system suppression as well as an over-reliance on medications. These side effects have drawn many people to search for an alternative approach, such as acupuncture and Oriental medicine to manage their allergies. One study recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that acupuncture can significantly relieve allergic rhinitis symptoms.
Acupuncture focuses on restoring balance to the body, improving immune system functioning, helping to relieve pain, reducing stress, enhancing blood circulation, and promoting overall health and well being in adults and children. It is a natural therapy that does not requires any drug and is highly effective when performed by an experienced practitioner.
Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese system of healing developed over 1000 years in China and is increasingly being recognized as effective by Western health professionals and patients. It is based upon detecting dis-harmonies within a person’s body and mind. These are determined by asking questions about presenting symptoms, life style, sleeping patterns, emotions, and feelings as well as examining the tongue, its color, shape, and coating and taking a series of pulses on both wrists.
– See more at: http://www.pacificcollege.edu/acupuncture-massage-news/articles/872-acupuncture-for-seasonal-allergies.html#sthash.pkEG0Rqg.dpuf
September 18, 2013 by admin
Source: Acupuncture Today
http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/abc/headaches.php
Simply defined, a headache is a pain in the head due to some cause. Headaches may result from any number of factors, including tension; muscle contraction; vascular problems; withdrawal from certain medications; abscesses; or injury.
Headaches fall into three main categories: tension-type, migraine and cervicogenic. Tension-type headaches are the most frequent. Patients who endure tension-type headaches usually feel mild to moderate pain on both sides of the head. The pain is usually described as tight, stiff or constricting, as if something is being wrapped around your head and squeezed tightly.
While migraines affect far fewer people than tension-type headaches and have a much shorter duration, their symptoms are much more severe. They typically affect women more frequently than men, with pain that usually occurs on one side of the head. Migraines can be so severe that they can cause loss of appetite, blurred vision, nausea and even vomiting.
Cervicogenic headaches are the most recently diagnosed type of headache and are musculoskeletal in nature. They may be caused by pain in the neck or spine that is transferred to the head. Many times, cervicogenic headaches go undiagnosed because of their recent classification.
What can acupuncture do for headaches?
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a very consistent and philosophically-based framework for headache etiology, physiology, diagnosis and treatment strategy. Acupuncture, as an effective treatment modality, has been applied to headaches from the earliest beginnings of TCM.
Acupuncture is not only effective for migraine headaches, but also works very well with tension headaches, cluster headaches, post-traumatic headaches, and disease-related headaches that might be due to sinus problems, high blood pressure or sleeping disorders. The greatest advantage of acupuncture over Western medicine is that it does virtually no harm. Some medications can have serious side effects and can (in some instances) actually lead to patients experiencing a “rebound” headache. Unlike synthetic drugs, acupuncture has virtually no side effects, and the procedures for treating headaches are much less invasive with acupuncture than with surgery.
References
◾Carlsson J, Fahlcrantz A, Augustinsson LE. Muscle tenderness in tension headache treated with acupuncture or physiotherapy. Cephalalgia 1990;10:131-141.
◾Hesse J, Mogelvang B, Simonsen H. Acupuncture versus metoprolol in migraine prophylaxis: a randomized trial of trigger point inactivation. J Internal Med 1994;235:451-456.
◾Vincent CA. A controlled trial of the treatment of migraine by acupuncture. Clin J Pain 1989;5:305-312.
◾Vincent CA. The treatment of tension headache by acupuncture: a controlled single-case design with time series analysis. J Psychosomatic Res 1990;34:553-561.
◾Zhang L, Li L. 202 cases of headache treated with electroacupuncture. J Tradit Chin Med 1995;15(2):124-126.
September 18, 2013 by admin
Source: New York Times
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/acupuncture-provides-true-pain-relief-in-study/?_r=0
A new study of acupuncture — the most rigorous and detailed analysis of the treatment to date — found that it can ease migraines and arthritis and other forms of chronic pain.
The findings provide strong scientific support for an age-old therapy used by an estimated three million Americans each year. Though acupuncture has been studied for decades, the body of medical research on it has been mixed and mired to some extent by small and poor-quality studies. Financed by the National Institutes of Health and carried out over about half a decade, the new research was a detailed analysis of earlier research that involved data on nearly 18,000 patients.
The researchers, who published their results in Archives of Internal Medicine, found that acupuncture outperformed sham treatments and standard care when used by people suffering from osteoarthritis, migraines and chronic back, neck and shoulder pain.
“This has been a controversial subject for a long time,” said Dr. Andrew J. Vickers, attending research methodologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the lead author of the study. “But when you try to answer the question the right way, as we did, you get very clear answers.
“We think there’s firm evidence supporting acupuncture for the treatment of chronic pain.”
Acupuncture, which involves inserting needles at various places on the body to stimulate so-called acupoints, is among the most widely practiced forms of alternative medicine in the country and is offered by many hospitals. Most commonly the treatment is sought by adults looking for relief from chronic pain, though it is also used with growing frequency in children. According to government estimates, about 150,000 children in the United States underwent acupuncture in 2007.
But for all its popularity, questions about its efficacy have long been commonplace. Are those who swear by it experiencing true relief or the psychological balm of the placebo effect?
Dr. Vickers and a team of scientists from around the world — England, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere — sought an answer by pooling years of data. Rather than averaging the results or conclusions from years of previous studies, a common but less rigorous form of meta-analysis, Dr. Vickers and his colleagues first selected 29 randomized studies of acupuncture that they determined to be of high quality. Then they contacted the authors to obtain their raw data, which they scrutinized and pooled for further analysis. This helped them correct for statistical and methodological problems with the previous studies, allowing them to reach more precise and reliable conclusions about whether acupuncture actually works.
All told, the painstaking process took the team about six years. “Replicating pretty much every single number reported in dozens of papers is no quick or easy task,” Dr. Vickers said.
The meta-analysis included studies that compared acupuncture with usual care, like over-the-counter pain relievers and other standard medicines. It also included studies that used sham acupuncture treatments, in which needles were inserted only superficially, for example, or in which patients in control groups were treated with needles that covertly retracted into handles.
Ultimately, Dr. Vickers and his colleagues found that at the end of treatment, about half of the patients treated with true acupuncture reported improvements, compared with about 30 percent of patients who did not undergo it.
“There were 30 or 40 people from all over the world involved in this research, and as a whole the sense was that this was a clinically important effect size,” Dr. Vickers said. That is especially the case, he added, given that acupuncture “is relatively noninvasive and relatively safe.”
September 5, 2013 by admin
Source: MedIndia
http://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/Can-Acupuncture-Cure-Hot-Flushes-in-Menopausal-Women-89892-1.html
Hot flashes are caused due to hormonal changes during menopause. It is characterized by spreading of intense heat in the upper body with profuse sweating and rapid heart beat. This can be accompanied by feelings of nausea, dizziness, headache, anxiety, depression, and feeling of suffocation or weakness. Hot flashes are very common in menopausal women.
Chinese medicine is known to have a long tradition of treating hot flashes quite effectively. Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine, which aims at treating or healing the sufferings of the patient by insertion of needles at specific points. This therapy treats pain, prevents diseases and promotes health and well-being.
Acupuncture acts on Xi (the inner wind, spirit or energy). It helps in treating hot flashes and other symptoms in menopausal women.
A multicentre, pragmatic, randomized controlled Acuflash study was conducted in Norway during 2006-07. The study aimed at evaluating the efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) on postmenopausal symptoms. The objective of the study was to compare the efficacy of acupuncture along with self-care against self-care alone in treating hot flashes and postmenopausal symptoms.
About 267 women with menopause participated in the study. Around 134 of them were given 10 acupuncture treatments by a qualified acupuncturist and advised on self-care. The remaining 133 women in the control group were given advice on self-care only.
During the treatment session, no complications like fainting or bleeding were reported. However one skin reaction, one unacceptable bruising and five cases of unacceptable pain were noted. In comparison to conventional medications, acupuncture produced no harmful side-effects.
The conclusion drawn from the Acuflash study was that the point selection and factors other than the diagnoses of TCM syndrome may affect the final outcome of the treatment. The study showed that treatment with acupuncture along with self-care contributed significantly to the reduction of hot flushes in postmenopausal women. With no serious adverse events, acupuncture proves to be a promising alternative therapy for treating hot flashes.
Source: Einar Kristian et al; Acupuncture in Medicine; 27:101-108
September 5, 2013 by admin
Source: WebMD
http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/news/20031015/acupuncture-calms-moms-stress-anxiety
A parent’s anxiety leaps when their child is going into surgery. But a new study shows acupuncture needles–carefully placed around the mother’s ear–can decrease her anxiety. When moms are less anxious, there’s less anxiety in children, experts say.
Auricular or ear acupuncture has long been known to relieve stress and anxiety. Until now, however, it was not known that needles placed around the ear were so effective in relieving parental anxiety associated with a child’s surgery, a constant and very real concern for doctors.
Researcher Shu-Ming Wang, MD, at the Yale University School of Medicine presented study findings at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists being held in San Francisco. In Wang’s study, 43 mothers randomly chosen to get auricular acupuncture 30 minutes before their child’s surgery had significantly less anxiety than the 49 mothers who got acupuncture but at the shoulder points, wrists, and joint positions.
Also, there was significantly less anxiety in children whose mothers received auricular acupuncture to reduce anxiety when they were wheeled into the operating room, and when the anesthesia mask was put on their faces.
In fact, after the surgery was over, 51% of the auricular acupuncture-group mothers asked to keep the needles in place. While mothers were skeptical about the acupuncture procedure, the results were indisputable, researchers say.
“After the insertion of needles into the [ear], most of them were pleasantly surprised and asked, ‘Is that it?'” says Wang in a news release. The procedure involves small needles that resemble flat thumbtacks. They are unobtrusive, effective, have no side effects, and are virtually painless.
In fact, “many of the patients laughed after I showed them the needles, and only a handful of them experienced a slight stinging sensation,” Wang says.
Calm Mothers Ease Anxiety in Children
A relaxed mother helps the child to relax, Wang stresses. Studies have shown that parents’ anxiety can affect the child’s recovery, triggering clinging, nightmares, bedwetting, and aggressive behavior–all signs of extreme anxiety in children.
Wang has personally witnessed crying parents enter operating rooms, creating anxiety in children. This “invariably causes the child to cry and affects the procedure,” Wang explains. “All this anxiety distracts health-care providers’ attention away from the most important person in the procedure, the child.”
September 5, 2013 by admin
Source: Sara Calabro, Founding editor, AcuTake
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-calabro/acupuncture-benefits_b_2398193.html
Here are 13 specific ways that acupuncture can change your life in 2013.
1. It will open your mind.
Acupuncture requires us to think about health in entirely new ways. Despite noble efforts by many to find one, there is no biomedical equivalent for qi or meridians. Acupuncture turns mainstream medical tenets on their head. It will remind you that there are multiple ways of seeing the world.
2. It can help make you less stressed.
Acupuncture takes the edge off. It removes you from the perpetual state of sympathetic dominance in which so many of us find ourselves. By mellowing out the nervous system, acupuncture can help you feel less affected by and better equipped to manage the stressful aspects of life.
3. It will inspire you to get outside more.
In acupuncture theory, humans are viewed as microcosms of the natural world that surrounds them. Things like weather and seasonal shifts factor significantly into acupuncture diagnoses and treatment plans. When you start thinking about health in this way, realizing the intimate relationship that humans have with nature, it inspires a desire to get outside and commune with your natural habitat.
4. It can help give you more energy.
Although it’s common to find yourself in “acu land” — a somewhat dazed, blissfully-relaxed state — immediately following acupuncture treatment, the after effect is usually increased energy. Many people report having more energy in the hours, days and even weeks after acupuncture treatment. You may notice that you’re avoiding that post-lunch coma, feeling more motivated to hit the gym, or just sensing a little extra spring in your step.
5. It will clear your head.
In addition to the surge of physical energy that follows emerging from acu land, many people notice improved mental clarity after acupuncture. They’re able to make decisions faster with greater confidence. They feel more motivated and resolute about tackling items that have been lingering for months on their to-do lists. It’s as if the mental cobwebs have been cleared out. Suddenly, you will be out of your own way.
6. It will allow you to give yourself a break.
Acupuncture looks at how root imbalances affect the whole system. This means that when one thing is out of whack, it can affect you in multiple ways. Many of us are quick to beat ourselves up when we can’t muster energy for something that used to come easy, or when we fail to accomplish all the things we “should” be doing.
By thinking of yourself as a complex, interconnected system, it becomes easier to understand why you might be feeling incomplete or depleted. Acupuncture broadens your awareness of the things that can potentially influence your physical and emotional health. This, hopefully, will help you be a little kinder to yourself.
7. It can help you sleep.
Insomnia is one of the most common complaints seen by acupuncturists, and acupuncture can be highly effective at helping it. But even in people who do not recognize or mention sleep as a problem, acupuncture has a tendency to produce more restful nights. This often goes unnoticed until asked about on a follow-up visit. Many acupuncturists hear this refrain multiple times a day: “You know, now that you mention it, I have been sleeping a lot better since I started coming for acupuncture.”
8. It will get you thinking differently about food.
Whether you’re Paleo, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, or free of any restrictions, acupuncture will lend some interesting perspective to your food choices. In acupuncture, foods often are thought about in terms of temperature. Some people, because of their constitutions or root imbalances, need warming foods while others need foods that cool. And this can change significantly based on the seasons. Everyone is different. Acupuncture dietary theory sheds light on why some people can eat certain foods and feel unaffected while others can’t even look in their direction.
9. It will help you embrace change.
Conventional medicine requires us to think in absolutes, to label things good or bad, black or white. We’re either sick or we’re healthy. Our numbers are too high or too low. We’re happy or we’re depressed. Yet in between these extremes, subtle yet significant shifts occur. Acupuncture works in this gray area and teaches us to reflect on the small changes happening within and around us all the time. In acupuncture, this is progress.
Unwillingness to accept change is a huge source of stress and anxiety for many people. Through reframing change as a marker of progress rather than something to be scared of, you will learn to love it.
10. It will give you something to talk about at parties.
Acupuncture is a crowd pleaser! Next time you’re feeling awkward or bored at a social gathering, mention that you recently had acupuncture. You’ll be an instant sensation. People love learning about acupuncture. Did it hurt? Did she stick them in your eyes? People also love sharing their own acupuncture experiences, so it’s a quick way find common ground and make friends.
11. It will make you more patient.
We loooove technology. Whether it’s the latest product from Apple or a cutting-edge MRI, we lust after shiny tools that promise to make us better. Technology, while awesome, acclimates us to quick fixes and perpetuates an “I want it now” mentality. This creates chronic impatience.
Acupuncture, because it works but rarely overnight, can help us combat this. Acupuncture is an ongoing process that requires an investment of time and a willingness to let go of our desire for instant gratification. It will make you a more patient person.
12. It will make you tough.
It’s not always easy to embrace acupuncture. Most doctors, as well as some family, friends and colleagues, regard mainstream medicine as the only acceptable form of health care. The constant barrage of pharmaceutical advertising is hard to ignore. It takes courage to go against the grain.
Acupuncture, although becoming more popular, is still not the norm. It requires a conscious commitment to understanding ourselves in a way that the majority shuns. This is the harder path toward health but ultimately the most rewarding.
13. It will make you believe in yourself.
The driving idea behind acupuncture is that we’re already in possession of everything we need to be well. Acupuncture does not add or subtract anything. Rather, it prompts the body to do what it already knows how to do. It reminds you that you have the power to heal yourself.
This does not mean that external interventions such as pharmaceuticals or surgery should always be shunned — in many cases, these are life-saving measures. But it does mean that becoming healthier, whatever that means to you, is within your control. When it comes to improving our physical and emotional health, most of us are capable of a lot more than we think. By using a therapy like acupuncture, which embraces rather than ignores our innate healing capacity, you’re making a statement that you believe in yourself.
by Sara Calabro
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-calabro/acupuncture-benefits_b_2398193.html
September 3, 2013 by admin
Source : University of Maryland, Medical Center
Exercise 1
Make a loose right fist, palm up, and use your left hand to press gently down against the clenched hand.
Resist the force with the closed right hand for 5 seconds. Be sure to keep your wrist straight.
Turn your right fist palm down, and press the knuckles against the left open palm for 5 seconds.
Finally, turn your right palm so the thumb-side of the fist is up, and press down again for 5 seconds.
Repeat with your left hand.
Exercise 2
Hold one hand straight up shoulder-high with your fingers together and palm facing outward. (The position looks like a shoulder-high salute.)
With the other hand, bend the hand you are exercising backward with the fingers still held together and hold for 5 seconds.
Spread your fingers and thumb open while your hand is still bent back and hold for 5 seconds.
Repeat five times with each hand.
Exercise 3 (Wrist Circle)
Hold your second and third fingers up, and close the others.
Draw five clockwise circles in the air with the two fingertips.
Draw five more counterclockwise circles.
Repeat with your other hand.
Fingers and Hand
Exercise 1
Clench the fingers of one hand into a tight fist.
Release, fanning out your fingers.
Do this five times. Repeat with the other hand.
Exercise 2
To exercise your thumb, bend it against the palm beneath the little finger, and hold for 5 seconds.
Spread the fingers apart, palm up, and hold for 5 seconds.
Repeat five to 10 times with each hand.
Exercise 3
Gently pull your thumb out and back and hold for 5 seconds.
Repeat five to 10 times with each hand.
Forearms (stretching these muscles will reduce tension in the wrist)
Place your hands together in front of your chest, fingers pointed upward in a prayer-like position.
Keeping your palms flat together, raise your elbows to stretch your forearm muscles.
Stretch for 10 seconds.
Gently shake your hands limp for a few seconds to loosen them.
Repeat frequently when your hands or arms tire from activity.
Neck and Shoulders
Exercise 1
Sit upright and place your right hand on top of your left shoulder.
Hold that shoulder down, and slowly tip your head down toward the right.
Keep your face pointed forward, or even turned slightly toward the right.
Hold this stretch gently for 5 seconds.
Repeat on the other side.
Exercise 2
Stand in a relaxed position with your arms at your sides.
Shrug your shoulders up, then squeeze your shoulders back, then stretch your shoulders down, and then press them forward.
The entire exercise should take about 7 seconds.
Source: Carpal tunnel syndrome | University of Maryland Medical Center
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