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Acupuncture? - 8/3/2014 1:54:50 PM

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Has anyone taken the acupuncture route for chronic pain management? If so, was it helpful?

IHH

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/3/2014 2:39:56 PM

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Not for me, but for my dogs I have been using acupuncture for several years to fantastic effect. Both are older and had a lot of arthritis pain, and the acupuncture has done wonders for both of them. And they LOVE getting it.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/3/2014 2:59:53 PM

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Thanks Spiritedsub, that's great to hear. I have arthritis and Avascular necrosis in the left wrist. The orthopedic surgeon has me in a splint for the next 4 weeks to see if that helps with both, if not then surgery for the avascular necrosis but I'm going to give acupuncture a shot first, it can't hurt. One of my sons said to try a sensory deprivation tank, it does wonders for his back and shoulder issues but I don't know if I can go in one since I'm a bit claustrophobic.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/3/2014 4:56:21 PM

MistressDarkArt

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quote:

ORIGINAL: InHisHeart

Has anyone taken the acupuncture route for chronic pain management? If so, was it helpful?

IHH

Yes. It always helps get me unstuck when I'm in a pain loop and can't seem to get out on my own.

The beauty of it is, once you learn the acupuncture points that work for you, you can do it yourself via finger pressure, or electro.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 4:30:01 AM

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I'm going to make some phone calls today and get an appointment set up, enough is enough of being in non-stop pain.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 10:05:38 AM

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Not pain, but numbness.

I have few regrets about leaving FL - my Chiro and needle guy are the 2 biggest.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 10:26:50 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: InHisHeart

Has anyone taken the acupuncture route for chronic pain management? If so, was it helpful?

IHH

So the underlying reasoning behind it that there's some sort of mystical energy that only flows along certain pathways which have no physical existence is complete woo.

You should expect to get some placebo effect benefit out of it and it's generally safe but there is a risk of nerve damage.

I'd suggest a TENS unit instead as it will actually effect your nerves.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 10:29:43 AM

LittleGirlHeart

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Tried it and it did absolutely nothing. And after laying there for the duration, i felt stiffer than before, and itchy.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 10:31:06 AM

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Bullshit on both the placebo effect and the mysticism. Acupuncture works wonders on dogs who are not susceptible to either mysticism or placebo. I would think its success would be similar for other mammals including humans.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 11:56:17 AM

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In the words of Max Bygraves - lemme tell you a story.....

About 15 years ago, I tried everything to give up smoking and find a cure for my constant backache which was sometime sooo bad that I missed days off work cuz I couldn't get out of bed!!
Nothing seemed to work. Tried everything on the shelf and then some.... nothing.
I have always believed that acupuncture was just a myth and disbelieved all the good stories about it.
Nobody could have been more sceptical than I was - it was all mumbo-jumbo shit!!

Long story short and with nothing to lose, I found a Chinese acupuncture place. Didn't even have a shop front - just a doorway to an upstairs apartment. Nicely laid out and comfy but obviously a business with all the gadgets, gizmo's, needles and pins.

After a 1hr consultation with the explanation of the Chi lines etc, I had pins put in my ear lobes (for the smoking) and some needles in my back for the pain.
Leave to simmer for 1 hour with soothing music on headphones.

After the session, no back pain at all and smoking cut instantly from 50-a-day to just *3* and no compulsion to want to smoke either.
Cost me £50 at the time (about $85) but worth every penny.

So.... from a complete sceptic/bullshit opinion, I am now an advocate of it.... surprisingly!!

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 4:09:38 PM

pussycatpussycat

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I've had horses who were lame, where after exhausting everything else trying to find what was wrong, have done acupuncture and it worked...not always but it did help with a few.
It may not help you but you wont know unless you try

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 5:50:06 PM

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Horse loves it. I'm terrified of needles- so I use accupressure.

I'm a believer in "chi" and "meridians".

But I love my TENS unit to pieces.
(In other words- its up to you!)

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 8:52:50 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Spiritedsub2
Bullshit on both the placebo effect and the mysticism.

I don't see how you can bullshit my mysticism statement, it's the eastern equivalent of our dark ages humor balancing for Dog sake. Here check this out:

quote:

ORIGINAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture
According to TCM, stimulating specific acupuncture points corrects imbalances in the flow of qi through channels known as meridians.

As for it's efficacy:

quote:

ORIGINAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture
Acupuncture has been the subject of active scientific research, both in regard to its basis and therapeutic effectiveness, since the late 20th century.[8] Any evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture is "variable and inconsistent" for all conditions.[9] An overview of high-quality Cochrane reviews suggested that acupuncture may alleviate some but not all kinds of pain,[10] while a systematic review of systematic reviews found little evidence that acupuncture is an effective treatment for reducing pain.[6] Although minimally invasive, the puncturing of the skin with acupuncture needles poses problems when designing trials that adequately control for placebo effects.[8][11] Some of the research results suggest acupuncture can alleviate pain but others consistently suggest that acupuncture's effects are mainly due to placebo.[12] A systematic review of systematic reviews highlighted recent high-quality randomized controlled trials which found that for reducing pain, real acupuncture was no better than sham acupuncture.[6] It remains unclear whether acupuncture reduces pain independent of a psychological impact of the needling ritual.

So yeah placebo.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Spiritedsub2
Acupuncture works wonders on dogs who are not susceptible to either mysticism or placebo. I would think its success would be similar for other mammals including humans.

A couple of things:

1. The placebo effect wouldn't actually have to work on the dog, it just has to work ON YOU, convincing you that the dog feels better.

2. Dogs ARE susceptible to the placebo effect: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19912522

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/4/2014 9:01:18 PM

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Good thing for my arthritic dogs that they don't belong to you.

Edit: to the OP, I'd say give the acupuncture a try. If it doesn't work, no harm no foul. If it does work, it's terrific to find drug-free pain relief.

< Message edited by Spiritedsub2 -- 8/4/2014 9:04:14 PM >

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/5/2014 4:20:21 AM

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~FR

Thank you all for your thoughts and experiences.

GotSteel, I'm curious if you ever had acupuncture done to you.

As for only having to convince yourself that a dog/animal is feeling better, I work with animals (I do rescue work) and all the animals (dogs but not limited to dogs) I have adopted in the past 30 years have been animals with something medically wrong with them, the ones labeled "hard to place" or "unadoptable" due to health issues. With trying different treatments from meds to special diets, using diet supplements, physical therapy, massage therapy, swim therapy, some treatments worked for some but not on others. When something didn't work, I tried something else. I was never just "convinced" the animal was feeling better, I had to see actual results. It's not difficult to see if an animal you're with all the time is in distress or feeling better.

Whether acupuncture is placebo effect or not, I have no idea. Even if it is just placebo but greatly reduces or gets rid of the pain, that's the goal I want to achieve so it will have done it's job. If it works, I don't care how or why it worked, I just care that it worked. I have a very low tolerance for drugs, I can't take anything stronger than Advil which doesn't do much for the pain and I don't want to depend on meds to be pain free.

I'm waiting for a call back from the doc and checking into my health insurance to see if it covers acupuncture.

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I don't have a bucket list but my fucket list is a mile long.

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/5/2014 4:31:34 PM

pussycatpussycat

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And everyone knows that Wikipedia is never wrong!

It may be true that dogs get the placebo affect from their human owners but that isnt quite the case with horses who are lame where acupuncture has helped.....but hey, those horses had to be anaesthetised, so maybe just being knocked out, being relaxed on the ground worked...who knows...they couldnt actually tell me.
All I'm saying is that it cannot hurt to try acupuncture....the OP suffers from pain which she cannot escape from....even if acupuncture doesnt work with her, its not going to hurt to try.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/5/2014 4:40:44 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: InHisHeart
GotSteel, I'm curious if you ever had acupuncture done to you.

I've never had a need but if I did, acupuncture would be rather low on my list of options.

quote:

ORIGINAL: InHisHeart
I was never just "convinced" the animal was feeling better, I had to see actual results. It's not difficult to see if an animal you're with all the time is in distress or feeling better.

We're talking about pain here, even determining how much pain you yourself are in is an entirely subjective experience, but we aren't talking about that, the situation we're now discussing adds an additional level of subjectivity and we can't reasonably expect our results to become anymore accurate for that.

quote:

ORIGINAL: InHisHeart
Whether acupuncture is placebo effect or not, I have no idea.

You should, I've given you the wiki which cites the research on the subject demonstrating pretty conclusively that it is.

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/5/2014 5:47:10 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: InHisHeart
Even if it is just placebo but greatly reduces or gets rid of the pain, that's the goal I want to achieve so it will have done it's job. If it works, I don't care how or why it worked, I just care that it worked.

Sure, pains in the brain so if the best you can do is trick your brain into thinking it's in less pain by all means do that. It is much better than nothing. But from my point of view why not try the options more effective than placebo first? Since meds are off the table have you talked with your doctor about what else he recommends, try the best before you try the rest. The first thing that comes to my mind is Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation, but hey maybe that's not the best option for you *shrug* I'm not the professional, what does he recommend?

P.S.

I CAN point out that unlike acupuncture there's substantial research showing the effectiveness of TENS: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746624/

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/5/2014 6:02:34 PM

tj444

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quote:

ORIGINAL: InHisHeart

Has anyone taken the acupuncture route for chronic pain management? If so, was it helpful?

IHH

yeah, sorta... a few years ago.. I have a curve to my back & pain in my lower back area as a result so I was going to a chiropractor once a month.. then my back started getting worse, the pain started creeping up my spine until I there was pain from my lower back to my neck.. it was excruciating pain too.. it was so bad that I couldn't sleep in bed, just laying down caused more pain, I could not sit at my computer for more that 2 minutes at a time.. the least pain was if I just stood all day long.. I kept going to my chiropractor for it but it did no good..

so I finally went to an acupuncturist.. This is what he told me.. that my pain was from my stomach, I thought he was nutz.. I went home and googled and guess what, he was right..! all that pain was from inflammation due to my diet as I was eating way too much processed food (not so much junk food but a lot of frozen meals, too much processed carbs, etc).. I immediately changed my diet to all natural, home cooked and mostly veggie & fish and after a few days I started feeling better.. and in 2 weeks I was cured!!! (except for my regular lower back pain due to the curve in my spine).. I could finally get a good nights sleep!

I think total I had about 12 acupuncture treatments.. he stuck the pins in me, he did the cupping thing on my back and he did a heat lamp on my back plus he gave me some special tea for my tummy.. I don't know how much the acupuncture actually helped me but his advice sure as heck did! I guess that is what I valued about his treatments, that he could tell me what was wrong with me so I could help myself get better.. I seriously doubt a medical Doctor could have told me what was really wrong with me.. The acupuncture treatments were paid for by my health care plan (in Canada)..

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RE: Acupuncture? - 8/5/2014 6:04:45 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: pussycatpussycat
It may be true that dogs get the placebo affect from their human owners but that isnt quite the case with horses who are lame where acupuncture has helped.....but hey, those horses had to be anaesthetised, so maybe just being knocked out, being relaxed on the ground worked...who knows...they couldnt actually tell me.

That's not outside the realm of the placebo effect, keep in mind the study I used to show that placebo works on dogs documented a reduction in their number of seizures.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pussycatpussycat
All I'm saying is that it cannot hurt to try acupuncture....the OP suffers from pain which she cannot escape from....even if acupuncture doesnt work with her, its not going to hurt to try.

It actually can, think about the obvious possible complication of having someone place needles directly over nerves. At some point he could accidentally manage to actually interact with one of those nerves in which case NERVE DAMAGE.

(in reply to pussycatpussycat)

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