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Acupuncture for Low Back Pain (1)

TCM, Chinese medicine, Low Back Pain
Low Back Pain

Low back pain is probably the commonest health problem in the United States, and it is also one of the most common reasons for a medical doctor to refer a patient to an acupuncture clinic. Because acupuncture is relatively new in this country, there have not been many scientific studies done here on the general effectiveness of acupuncture. Studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been done in the areas of pain control, drug detoxification, and nausea reduction, and have shown acupuncture to be a safe and effective treatment modality for those problems. There are many more studies from Asia and Europe that support the use of acupuncture and Chinese medicine for a variety of health conditions. The reason American doctors are more and more willing to refer their patients to acupuncturists for pain-related and neurological problems is because of the NIH studies, and because their patients report that acupuncture has a high success rate.

Most people probably think that back pain is back pain, but it is important to distinguish between acute low back pain and chronic low back pain. Type of treatment, length of treatment, and treatment outcomes will vary, depending on which kind of back pain you have.

Acute low back pain: If you have just injured yourself, and come in to have an acupuncture treatment right away, you will usually see immediate results. Recently I saw a young man who had injured himself two days before when he tried to lift a heavy couch. He had never experienced back trouble previously. His pain was so bad that he could hardly get out of bed, or even go to the bathroom. He needed assistance to get up on the treatment table and to take his shoes off. After the acupuncture treatment he immediately felt much better, got off the treatment table by himself, and could bend over to put his shoes back on. Within the week he had two more treatments, and totally recovered. The bad news is that we hardly ever see acute cases. Generally, by the time people decide to try acupuncture they have already tried everything else they could think of, and acupuncture is the last resort.

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