Acupuncture & Sports Injuries

Acupuncture & Sports Injuries 

My son injured his lower back and right neck the other night at a football game. The trainer and the walk-in clinic diagnosed a spinal stinger. X-rays were taken and nothing is broken. The orthopedist said it was "just a strain" and wants to take him out of sports for four weeks. That's almost half the season. Nobody has offered any type of treatment other than rest and pain pills which do not help. Can chiropractic or acupuncture offer any quick relief? I would like to no what kind of treatments he can do at home to speed up the healing process. He wants to get back on the field.

First of all, that is what every athlete wants is to get back on the field Chiropractors have special training in sports injuries, and some, like myself, even have post-graduate training in orthopedics and sports medicine that can ultimately lead to diplomat status. This an additional 300 hours of sports orthopedic training that can be achieved after chiropractic school.

Lets address a stinger. This usually happens after an intense blow to the top or either side of the head. It is very common in football and should be taken very seriously.

After the injury, the player may experience numbness, tingling, burning and spasms of the neck, upper back and affected extremity. This is basically a pinched nerve in the neck. It usually in the lower neck, but it can be in the upper neck also. Chiropractors specialize in pinched nerves.

Once the medical personal have ruled out any serious damage to the spinal cord, it is time to get evaluated immediately by a chiropractor.

A thorough exam should be performed and a treatment plan will be implemented.

At my office, there will be an intense series of spinal manipulation, therapeutic massage sessions, physical therapy treatments and acupuncture performed.

Home treatments will include ice massage, TENS therapy, orthopedic bracing if needed and special instructions on stretching.

Remember, sprain or strains of the joints and surrounding tissues are the most common injuries related to any kind of sports injuries. Pain, swelling, redness, purple skin discoloration, reduced range of motion and a dull ache are the most common symptoms.

Along with the conventional R.I.C.E. formula (rest, ice, compression, elevation), acupuncture has been found to be very effective in quickly suppressing inflammation and swelling and typically speeds up the healing process.

I know what you are thinking, my kid is afraid of needles and is not going to do acupuncture. Maybe or maybe not, but you would be surprised at how many kids are willing to try acupuncture to get better faster and get back on the field.

My son was 9 when he first tried acupuncture for chronic stomach problems. He had miraculous results and is now receiving acupuncture for his low back pain.

By Layne Towery
Sept. 13, 2016 at midnight

Acupuncture Helps With Pain!

Acupuncture Helps With Pain!

LAS VEGAS — Acupuncture is an effective way to relieve some chronic pain conditions, according to a presentation at PAINWeek 2016.1

Richard Harris, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology at the University of Michigan and co-president for the Society for Acupuncture Research, reviewed the basic principles of acupuncture research during his discussion.

In his presentation, Dr Harris discussed results from a meta-analysis conducted by the Acupuncture Trialists' Collaboration, an international group of 31 physicians, clinical trialists, biostatisticians, acupuncturists, and other specialists established in 2006 to provide best evidence on the effects of acupuncture on chronic pain.2

For the analysis, the Collaborative obtained individual patient data sets from 29 randomized clinical trials of acupuncture in back pain, neck pain, headache, and osteoarthritis. The paper, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2012, concluded that for all of the included conditions, patients who underwent acupuncture had less pain but that the effect size of acupuncture differed based on the control group. A moderate effect size was found for acupuncture over non-acupuncture controls, such as no treatment or wait lists, while a smaller yet statistically significant effect size was found for acupuncture over sham acupuncture techniques.

Dr Harris explained in his presentation that these data have significant clinical implications for patients. A patient with a baseline pain score of 60 on a scale of 0 to 100 would be expected to have a pain score of 45 after a non-acupuncture intervention, a score of 35 after a sham acupuncture intervention, and a score of 30 after true acupuncture.

The Acupuncture Trialists' Collaboration concluded that the differences in effect size by control group suggest that factors in addition to needling specific effects are important contributors to acupuncture's therapeutic effects.

“The total effects of acupuncture, as experienced by the patient in routine practice, include both the specific effects associated with correct needle insertion according to acupuncture theory, nonspecific physiologic effects of needling, and nonspecific psychological (placebo) effects related to the patient's belief that treatment will be effective,” wrote the authors.

Dr Harris' presentation also included a review of research on evidence from a neuroimaging trial his group conducted that showed the benefits of acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture.3

"What we found is that there are many areas of the brain where acupuncture needling changed the opioid receptor binding potential differently than sham acupuncturing," Dr Harris said, adding "all of the acupuncture-treated patients had an increase in their binding potential in the short term as well as the long term."

References

1. Harris RE. Acupuncture analgesia: therapy or sham? Presented at: PAINWeek 2016. Las Vegas, NV; September 6-10, 2016.
2. Vickers AJ, Cronin AM, Maschino AC, et al. Acupuncture for chronic pain: individual patient data meta-analysis. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(19):1444-1453. 
3. Harris RE, Zubieta JK, Scott DJ, et al. Traditional Chinese acupuncture and placebo (sham) acupuncture are differentiated by their effects on mu-opioid receptors (MORs). Neuroimage. 2009; 47(3):1077-1085. 

Zap! How acupuncture can ease constipation

Zap! How acupuncture can ease constipation

Stuart Bradford

Acupuncture to the abdomen, boosted by an electric current, helped relieve severe constipation, a new study found.

Chinese researchers studied 1,075 patients with severe functional constipation, which means they were unable to have a complete bowel movement more than twice a week. The study subjects all reported a number of unpleasant symptoms, including hard stools, a sensation of incomplete evacuation and often needing to strain when going to the bathroom. They were randomly assigned to receive either a form of acupuncture or a sham procedure, according to the report published today in Annals of Internal Medicine.

For the treatment group, the researchers used electro-acupuncture, in which low-voltage currents are passed through acupuncture needles. Trained acupuncturists inserted needles at six acupuncture points in the abdomen deep enough to puncture the muscle layer of the abdominal wall, and then passed current through attached wires for 30 minutes. The control group received shallow needles at nonacupuncture points, with electrical wires attached in the same way, but with no current passing through them. The procedures were repeated in 28 sessions over eight weeks.

Participants in both groups were allowed to use a laxative every three days if needed, and they recorded their use in diaries.

During the eight weeks of treatment, 31.3 percent of people in the treatment group showed improvement (measured by three or more bowel movements per week without the need for laxatives) compared with just 12.1 percent in the control group who improved. Over the 12 weeks of follow-up, 37.7 percent of the treatment group reported similar levels of improvement, compared to 14.1 percent of the patients in the control group.

The authors acknowledge that the acupuncture treatment could not be fully blinded, possibly influencing the researchers’ expectations. While it’s not known exactly why acupuncture may have made a difference, one theory is that the treatment stimulates the muscles along the gastrointestinal tract.

The researchers noted that more study is needed. “Though the safety of acupuncture is good, we do not suggest it as a first-line treatment,” said the lead author, Dr. Marie Jia Liu of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. “The people in this study had severe constipation.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 13, 2016, on page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: Alternative Medicine; Acupuncture and Constipation. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

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• By NICHOLAS BAKALARSEPT. 12, 2016
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Cupping Explained!

Cupping: What were the marks on Michael Phelps' back?

By Jessica Haynes

Updated 9 Aug 2016, 1:36am

PHOTO: Michael Phelps cheering on his team-mates with a visible "cupping" spot on his back and shoulder(AP: Lee Jin-man)

When US Olympian Michael Phelps jumped into the pool this week in Rio, it wasn't just his 19th gold medal that made headlines.

Phelps had large, circular bruises that covered his back and shoulders, causing some to question whether they were the result of a paintball session or perhaps falling asleep on all his medals.

But as it turns out Phelps is a fan of cupping.

What is cupping?

It is an ancient therapy, said to be used in ancient China, Greece and Egypt, where glass or plastic cups, sometimes heated, are applied to the skin.

They are usually placed on the back or arms or legs and either heated or pumped to suck the skin into the cup.

In most cases a flammable liquid is put into the cups to create suction.

Some therapists move them around on the back, other leave them on the skin untouched, before taking them off.

What does it supposedly do?

It is said to promote blood flow and bring toxins to the surface of the skin.

People undergo the treatment for a range of health issues including muscle tension, arthritis, sleep issues, fertility problems and pain relief.

However Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association vice president Waveny Holland said the use of cupping was up to the practitioner, and not generally used for specific medical ailments.

"It's not a blanket thing like Western medicine," Mrs Holland said.

"Practitioners will treat their patients according to their specific needs.

"Cupping isn't generally used for headache or infertility ... it would be on the practitioner's diagnosis and assessment that they will choose the right treatment for that person."

What about the bruises?

Well, Mrs Holland said her training taught her not to leave any bruises after a cupping treatment.

"For me again, I use it sliding (the cup) and that's like doing a deep-tissue massage without leaving the marks," she said.

"You don't put them over broken skin at all or anything like that.

"You don't want to cause any more bleeding."

Why do athletes do it?

It is said to help improve recovery and promote blood flow.

"I'd be interested to know whether they are Chinese medicine practitioners, whether their professionally trained or whether they're just practitioners who think that cupping might be good thing to do," Mrs Holland said.

PHOTO: Michael Phelps showed his love of cupping on his Instagram account (Instagram: Michael Phelps)

US gymnast Alexander Naddour is also a fan.

He told USA Today that it was "better than any money I've spent on anything else".

What does science tell us?

Not much, according to Australian Medical Association vice president Dr Tony Bartone.

"What I can say is that cupping has, from our perspective, no medical benefit whatsoever," Dr Bartone said.

"There is no evidence to suggest — not proven evidence — to suggest that it has a role to play."

Is it dangerous?

Well, it can be.

"Well look ... the theory is it is using a suction to draw ... toxins out of the blood to the surface [and] the pressure, that creates bruising beneath the skin," Dr Bartone said.

"You're breaking ... capillaries... that bruising or bleeding may be extensive and may create deep bruising within muscle which may, in really bad cases, could create some deep scaring or nodules.

"Because some practitioners use heat ... burns are not an uncommon consequence of cupping, not to mention the impressive bruises that are visible for all to see."

So, should you avoid Chinese medicine?

Not necessarily. Dr Bartone said cupping was "one of the more extreme ends" of Chinese medicine.

"Acupuncture has got a role to play," he said.

"It's used by many leading pain management clinics.

"[Cupping] just unfortunately doesn't stand up to the same rigour of scrutiny."

Mrs Holland said it was important to seek out professionals with proper qualifications.

"There's a lot of controversy going around Chinese medicine," she said.

"Chinese medical practitioners have to have a minimum of a four-year bachelor degree [in] Chinese medicine to be registered and practice and we've got to maintain our professional development every year to maintain that registration to practice.

"The national law is supposed to protect [the public] from people who are not properly trained."

Acupuncture May Slow Memory Loss

Acupuncture may benefit people who have memory loss, but don't yet have dementia, suggests a review by Chinese researchers of five earlier studies.

Nothing has yet been proven to halt the progression to dementia in those who are destined to progress. But, acupuncture used alone or along with another treatment, such as the medication nimodipine, might help retain some memory function, the researchers said.

But several doctors not involved with the review said it was too soon to say that acupuncture might be effective against dementia.

For the study, Min Deng and Xu-Feng Wang, from Wuhan University in China, reviewed five previously published studies done in 2012 and 2013.

The trials included nearly 600 people with mild cognitive impairment, a type of memory loss that's considered pre-dementia. About 5 percent to 10 percent of people with mild cognitive impairment develop dementia each year, the study authors noted.

The researchers concentrated on people who had a specific form of mild cognitive impairment called amnestic. People with this type of impairment are even more likely to develop dementia, the review authors said.

The studies compared the benefit of acupuncture alone versus nimodipine. Or, looked at the two treatments together compared to nimodipine alone.

Patients received treatment three to five times a week for eight weeks in four trials. The fifth trial lasted for three months.

The combined data from all five trials showed that those receiving acupuncture did better than those on nimodipine alone.

The acupuncture patients scored better on two tests of memory and dementia: the mini-mental state exam (a 30-point questionnaire that measures mental impairment), and picture recognition.

In addition, the combination of acupuncture and nimodipine improved scores on the mini-mental state exam compared with nimodipine alone, the researchers found.

Three trials reported side effects, which for acupuncture included fainting during treatment and slow bleeding at the needle sites. Side effects reported for nimodipine included nausea, constipation and mild headache, according to the report.

Dr. Remy Coeytaux is an associate professor in community and family medicine and an acupuncture researcher at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He was one of the experts reluctant to embrace the review's findings.

"The studies suggest that acupuncture is effective, but my degree of confidence in this finding is low, [but] it's not zero," Coeytaux said.

The problem is that "the quality of the studies really was poor, so that puts a damper on the findings, because it's hard to trust the data from the original studies," explained Coeytaux.

"There is high risk of bias in all the studies," he added.

Coeytaux suggested that some of the benefit seen from acupuncture might be a placebo effect. But, it's impossible from this review to know how much, if any, was a placebo effect, he explained.

What is known is encouraging, but there is need for a larger, better designed trial to really see if acupuncture can help, he said.

However, because there aren't any really effective treatments for memory loss, trying acupuncture is something patients can do -- it may not help, but it won't hurt, Coeytaux noted.

Another review skeptic is Dr. Sam Gandy, director of the Center for Cognitive Health at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. "I tend to believe some holistic interventions when properly executed," he said.

For example, Gandy noted that meditation in Alzheimer's disease patients is potentially credible and promising.

"That said, I don't believe anything until it is independently replicated," he said.

"I can imagine some ways in which acupuncture might increase alertness and attention and thereby memory, but I would want to see independent replication," Gandy added.

The new report was published Aug. 4 in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine.

© HealthDay 

Emergency Room Patients are Choosing Acupuncture Instead of Painkillers at Minneapolis Hospital

Beth McDonough
Updated: 05/06/2016 7:04 AM
Created: 05/05/2016 9:29 PM

Overdoses from painkillers and heroin are just about as deadly as car crashes in Minnesota.

Last year, 336 deaths were linked to the use of opioids or heroin.  In contrast, 411 people died in crashes.  Fatal facts like that drove a Minneapolis hospital to find another way to tame the pain.

Abbott Northwestern is the first hospital in not only Minnesota, but the country, to offer acupuncture in the emergency room.

Chris Tanita of Minneapolis took advantage of that one day in April.

"I had the most intense pain on the side of my throat and neck," Tanita said.

Tanita couldn't swallow or sleep and couldn't take the pain anymore.  Anxious and afraid, she came to the emergency room at Abbott Northwestern for relief.

"I want pain medicine for the fever," she said.

She wanted something to numb her suffering.  What she got was an option from Acupuncturist Adam Reinstein.

"I talked to your doctor and he wants me to see if you want acupuncture to make you more comfortable," he said.

Instead of getting a pill, she got poked.  Reinstein inserted the tiny, thin needles in certain spots. Needles can be inserted in places such as the hands, arms and ears to stimulate nerves, muscles and tissues.

"I am triggering their bodies own natural healing ability to produce their own painkiller's endorphins, they may help release them," according to Reinstein.

Within 30 minutes, Tanita felt the flare-ups fade, her fever go down and her throat relax.

"I literally couldn't talk three and a half hours ago," she said.

At this hospital, in the heart of the city, emergency room doctors treat almost 50,000 patients a year according to Dr. Christopher Obetz.

"It's a place where people are first exposed to painkillers and a place where people who already have addictions will come to acquire additional pain medications," Obetz said.

Abbott Northwestern's research points out 49 percent of people who come to the ER either receive painkillers as part of their treatment or get a prescription for them when leaving.  A national study shows 15 percent of the patients who are naive to painkillers and exposed to them for the first time in the ER become addicted within six to nine months.

That led Abbott Northwestern to launch a first-of-its-kind study to determine whether acupuncture is effective when used in addition to, or instead of, painkillers.

Jeffery Dusek is the lead researcher at the hospital's Penny George Institute of Health & Healing.

"I think we're at the point where patients aren't so concerned about what's going to reduce the pain as long as something can reduce the pain and if acupuncture can do it, they're in for it," Dusek said.

Adam Reinstein checks the patient board, talks with doctors and makes the rounds, looking for someone seeking pain relief.  Since the study started in 2013, a majority, 89 percent of 850 patients have been willing to give acupuncture a shot.  In 2013, 99 did.  That number more than tripled in 2014 to 371, then scaled back to 245 in 2015.  Dusek noticed something important, "we're seeing less use of opioid's in the ER when they're receiving acupuncture."

Dusek says 20 percent less, saving the hospital a lot of money.  What's more, some patients leave the ER without a prescription at all. 

Yet, Dr. Stephen Barrett openly questions the value of acupuncture.

"The scientific consensus is acupuncture is not particularly effective for pain, it's not better than a placebom: Barrett said.

Barrett practiced medicine for 35 years and runs a number of consumer health websites, including Acuwatch.org, where he refers to acupuncture as needles with nonsense.

"Listen, I don't believe in ghosts either and that's the equivalent of a ghost in your body," he added.

Yet, folks at Abbott Northwestern believe the benefits are very real.  The idea is to stick it to pain by combining Eastern remedies along with Western medicine.  5 EYEWITNESS NEWS was there as Jack Weston, of Edina, was being released from the hospital.  He wanted us to know he's tried both, and prefers one over the other.

"I would stay with the medicine if push came to shove, because I think it's likely more effective in the long run," he said.

However, staff at Abbott Northwestern believe acupuncture in the ER could reduce not only throbbing aches, but the use of painkillers and the number of prescriptions doctor's write, benefiting folks inside the hospital and even more outside of it.

"I think it's more societal costs if we could avoid people being dependent on opioids and all the consequent increases of hospitalizations and readmissions after that, I think that's where the benefit is," Dusek said.

As for Tanita, she's just as afraid of addictive meds as she is the pain itself.

"At least for me and how I want to live, I prefer to not take pills, you know the less foreign weird stuff in my body the better," Tanita said.

Tanita says part of what she liked about the program was she got to choose whether she wanted to take part. 

Acupuncture in the ER can be a one-time fix, or it can become ongoing treatment.  When a patient leaves, they can get a referral to the Penny George Institute, it's an outpatient clinic, or folks can go to any of the 584 licensed acupuncturists in the state.

The pilot program lasts another year.  The hospital is applying for a federal grant to continue and expand the study. 

Science suggests acupuncture works, but no one is sure why

WRITTEN BY

Katherine Ellen Foley

When the writer and artist Margarita Gokun Silver had her first migraine after she turned 40, the pain was so bad she vomited before lying in bed, completely incapacitated for the rest of the day.

Over-the-counter painkillers didn’t work. Her doctor, who assured her there was no underlying cause for her migraines, gave her expensive pain medication to try, but it left her with debilitating nausea. After trying a variety of other therapies—ranging from yoga to Canadian painkillers to Botox—she finally settled on acupuncture. It was the one thing that worked, she recently wrote in the Washington Post.

Acupuncture—the act of sticking tiny needles into different parts of the body to try to relieve pain elsewhere—is based on Chinese medicine from over 2000 years ago. In Chinese tradition, acupuncture helps realign the body’s qi (pronounced ‘chee’), which is the energy that flows through various parts of your bodies. It was assumed that when you were in discomfort, either as a result of pain or nausea, your body’s qi was misaligned; the tiny needles, sometimes augmented with heat or electricity, could help realign that energy, with the minor side effects of possibly a little on-site pain and light bleeding.

Although acupuncture was mostly abandoned between the 18th to 20th centuries, it was still practiced informally by Chinese traditionalists. It caught the attention of Westerners when, in 1971, the treatment was provided for a New York Times journalist in Peking, who later wrote(pdf) about the experience.

When the writer and artist Margarita Gokun Silver had her first migraine after she turned 40, the pain was so bad she vomited before lying in bed, completely incapacitated for the rest of the day.

Over-the-counter painkillers didn’t work. Her doctor, who assured her there was no underlying cause for her migraines, gave her expensive pain medication to try, but it left her with debilitating nausea. After trying a variety of other therapies—ranging from yoga to Canadian painkillers to Botox—she finally settled on acupuncture. It was the one thing that worked, she recently wrote in the Washington Post.

Acupuncture—the act of sticking tiny needles into different parts of the body to try to relieve pain elsewhere—is based on Chinese medicine from over 2000 years ago. In Chinese tradition, acupuncture helps realign the body’s qi (pronounced ‘chee’), which is the energy that flows through various parts of your bodies. It was assumed that when you were in discomfort, either as a result of pain or nausea, your body’s qi was misaligned; the tiny needles, sometimes augmented with heat or electricity, could help realign that energy, with the minor side effects of possibly a little on-site pain and light bleeding.

Although acupuncture was mostly abandoned between the 18th to 20th centuries, it was still practiced informally by Chinese traditionalists. It caught the attention of Westerners when, in 1971, the treatment was provided for a New York Times journalist in Peking, who later wrote(pdf) about the experience.