Inside the artfully curving, steel-and-glass Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute, home to a robotic CyberKnife, linear accelerator and other whiz-bang devices, Nick Dower treats patients with a simple tool Confucius would recognize.
Telling cancer patient Karen Wenrich, 60, to take a deep breath, Dower deftly taps an acupuncture needle into her leg, the fine steel point reaching muscle near the shin.
Over the next five minutes, he inserts 27 more needles. Wenrich says she hardly felt a thing.
Originating in China more than three millennia ago, acupuncture has slowly gained acceptance in the United States. The National Institutes of Health now recognizes its value in easing chronic back, knee and head pain.
Medicare does not cover acupuncture, but if requested, some insurers, including Aetna, Capital Blue Cross and Highmark, will cover physician-applied acupuncture for such problems as chronic pain or nausea.
Even in Lancaster County, acupuncture is going mainstream. A total of 12 licensed acupuncturists practice here, including at least three doctors, according to state records. That’s up from 10 in 2009. Across Pennsylvania, there are 705 acupuncturists, up from 638 in 2009.
“There’s increasing evidence that this is not just hocus-pocus or a placebo, but rather there’s something to it,” said Dr. Keith Wright, of Georgetown Family Health in Bart Township. “It adds another tool in my bag to help promote healing.”
Acupuncture involves the placement of slender needles at specific points of the body associated with electrical conductivity. Some acupuncturists attach the needles to a low-intensity electric current.
Supportive research
Research suggests the needles trigger responses in the body that influence pain, anxiety, circulation and other processes, according to the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.
Exactly how acupuncture works is not understood, but evidence is mounting that it does work, particularly for pain management, said Dr. Tony Ton-That, a rehabilitation physician with Lancaster Neuroscience & Spine Associates.
Ton-That predicts acupuncture will take off when more consumers and insurers see it as a cost-effective alternative to surgery and drugs for chronic neck and back pain.
He said about 40 percent of his practice involves acupuncture, up from 10 percent when he started offering the treatment 10 years ago.
“I was skeptical,” said Jason Nauman, 31, of Leola, a Marine Corps veteran who has suffered from debilitating back pain since surviving a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq in 2004.
But Nauman said he experienced immediate pain relief and improved range of motion after his first acupuncture treatment by Dr. Wright. He returns about every other week to keep the pain in check.
“This is the only thing that has worked,” Nauman said.
Fatigue treated
On a recent afternoon in a quiet, softly lit treatment room at Lancaster General Health’s Barshinger Cancer Institute, Dower inserted 28 needles into Wenrich’s skin — seven in each leg, three in each arm, three in the upper chest, two in each ear and one above the nose.
Wenrich rested on a treatment couch with eyes closed, her legs slightly elevated on cylindrical pillows.
“There’s very specific reasons for every point I choose,” said Dower, a Millersville University graduate who earned a master’s in acupuncture and became licensed after three years at the Won Institute of Graduate Studies in Montgomery County.
He was treating Wenrich for the lack of energy she feels after more than 30 radiation treatments over six weeks at the cancer institute this fall.
“I was thrilled, actually, that an institution like this would even offer acupuncture,” said Wenrich, of Manheim Township, a former massage therapist. “I came in eager, ready to go. But I can see where people would have a reservation.”
With each insertion, Dower first pressed a guide tube against Wenrich’s skin, then tapped the top of the encased needle, setting the point into the skin.
“Deep breath,” he said with each insertion. Wenrich said she experienced no discomfort and sometimes didn’t feel a needle going in. She rested alone for 20 minutes after Dower had set the needles.
Wenrich calls the $60 she pays for a 45-minute session several times a month money well spent. She said she sleeps better, has more energy and feels less anxious.
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