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Acupuncture Studies

Acupuncture for Chronic Pain, Failed Surgeries, and Autoimmune Conditions

If you’re suffering from chronic pain, failed surgeries, or an autoimmune condition, you’re not alone. Millions of people around the world struggle with these conditions, and they can be incredibly debilitating.

Traditional Western medicine often doesn’t offer much relief for these conditions. In some cases, surgery may be an option, but it’s not always successful. And even when surgery is successful, it often doesn’t address the underlying cause of the pain or condition.

That’s where acupuncture comes in. Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine treatment that has been used for thousands of years to treat a variety of conditions, including chronic pain, failed surgeries, and autoimmune conditions.

Acupuncture works by stimulating specific points on the body with thin, stainless steel needles. This stimulation helps to improve the flow of qi, or vital energy, throughout the body. When the flow of qi is restored, the body is better able to heal itself and reduce pain and inflammation.

There is a growing body of scientific evidence to support the use of acupuncture for chronic pain, failed surgeries, and autoimmune conditions. For example, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that acupuncture was effective in reducing pain and improving function in people with chronic low back pain.

Another study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that acupuncture was effective in reducing pain and improving quality of life in people with rheumatoid arthritis.

If you’re considering acupuncture for chronic pain, failed surgeries, or an autoimmune condition, it’s important to find a qualified acupuncturist. A qualified acupuncturist will have extensive training in Chinese medicine and will be able to assess your individual needs.

Acupuncture is a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain, failed surgeries, and autoimmune conditions. If you’re looking for a natural way to relieve your pain and improve your quality of life, acupuncture may be a good option for you.

acupuncture consult

What’s Our Medical Director Been Up To?

Have you heard? Our Medical Director, Laura Parks, M.Ac., L.Ac. went back to school and will be graduating at the end of April 2023 with her Doctorate in Acupuncture. 13 years after graduating with her Masters degree in Acupuncture, we’ll be calling “Dr. Laura” to the clinic with all her new wisdom on how to help patients. 

Here’s what she had to say about her doctorate experience so far: “It’s been so great studying advanced, complex conditions like Lyme’s disease, advanced fertility and gynecological issues, pediatrics, and autoimmune conditions, weighing in with some of the most brilliant minds in the country. Last semester I got to celebrate getting straight A’s in all my classes while juggling family life and running a very busy clinic, all while completing medical internships, studying modern acupuncture research, and learning from live case studies. I’m so grateful for this opportunity to take my training to the next level and serve thousands of patients in the future with this centuries old medicine.” 

We can’t wait to see what the future holds upon completing her doctorate this April! 

If you’re interested in working with our Medical Director, Laura Parks, this spring, give us a call at 410-847-4766.

Acupuncture Research: Neuropathy Solutions are Here!

One exciting piece of compiled research breaks down many times of neuropathy and how acupuncture was used to improve the various types of acupuncture called, “Acupuncture for the Treatment of Peripheral Neuropathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.”

Results of 13 clinical trials showed, “most long-term follow-ups favored acupuncture at 4 weeks,56,60 5 weeks,61 7 months, and 13 months,55 ” and “all four RCTs56,60,61,62 used validated CTS-specific scales (Table 2) and reported significant improvement with manual acupuncture56,60,62 and electroacupuncture61 compared with baseline in the Global Symptom Score,56,60 Boston Carpal Tunnel Score,61 Carpal Tunnel Self-assessment Questionnaire,62 and Visual Analogue Scale61 (Table 3). Three of the four RCTs included showed significantly greater effectiveness of acupuncture compared with night splinting,61 sham acupuncture,60 oral vitamin B1 and B6,60 and oral prednisolone.56 ”

Acupuncture-induced changes in nerve conduction parameters

“NCS were performed in included trials on DPN and CTS (Table 4). With respect to motor nerve function, acupuncture produced significant effects on median nerve compound muscle action potential (CMAP) amplitude, median nerve distal motor latency (DML), and motor nerve conduction velocity (NCV) of the median, ulnar, and peroneal nerves. Compared with medication control, acupuncture caused significantly greater improvement in DML and in median, ulnar, and motor NCV.”

Sensory NCS revealed that acupuncture caused an increase in sensory nerve action potential (SNAP) amplitude in the median nerve, lowered median nerve distal sensory latency (DSL), and increased median and peroneal nerve NCV.”

This piece of research can be found in full text at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5359694/ Dimitrova, A., Murchison, C., & Oken, B. (2017). Acupuncture for the Treatment of Peripheral Neuropathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.), 23(3), 164–179. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2016.0155

The Acupuncture profession has been extremely busy the last 10 years with clinical trials, experiments on how effective specific acupuncture protocols are for different conditions. Up until about 10 years ago, many clinical trials on acupuncture were skewed because the “control” in the experiments was “sham acupuncture.”

Sham acupuncture and regular acupuncture had to be “double blinded” in the original clinical trials, and therefore were done with something placed on the skin and a plastic “guide tube” used to tap the acupuncture needle into the skin. Participants in the clinical trials were not sure if they were receiving the sham acupuncture or the regular acupuncture, because the tapping sensation was the same for both. Another way sham acupuncture was performed was to needle places on the body that were not the exact anatomical acupuncture point locations, however the needle placements were often still located on the acupuncture pathway or close enough to an acupuncture point to still stimulate an acupuncture point and create clinical improvements in the participants.

The more impressive clinical trial results are those that compare acupuncture to another health modality, such as pain medication or physical therapy. Acupuncture often is shown in these clinical trials to be significantly more effective in improving patient outcomes and getting better clinical results in treating most conditions.

You can see more acupuncture research (and ALL types of medical research!) for yourself, by exploring research on the government regulated public medical database, www.PubMed.gov

If you look at research, I do suggest reading how the experiment was conducted, what the ‘control’ of the experiment was, and how big the sample size was, and for how long.

At Cloud 9 Acupuncture, we specialize in treating many types of neuropathy, including peripheral neuropathy, bell’s palsy, and diabetic neuropathy, as well as chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy. We are one of a handful of clinics in the country that provide this proprietary neuropathy treatments with over a 85% success rate. Call 410-847-4766 to begin with a consultation.

Feel the Sand Between Your Toes

Now that the weather is cooling down, some of us are dreaming about the beach. Feeling the sand between the toes. When you have neuropathy, that dream can easily become a nightmare, being uneasy on your feet, the fear of falling down and being embarrassed in front of your family and friends, feeling like a burden…

 

Our biggest fear as health care providers treating neuropathy patients is if a neuropathy patient decides not to treat their neuropathy, and doesn’t realize how much sensation they have lost in their feet, they are still driving a car and end up driving through a store front window.

I know, it may sound extreme. Unfortunately, this is a weekly (or more) occurrence in retirement towns in the Carolinas, the South West, and Florida where there are many retirees.

Neuropathy is a progressive condition that basically presents as a gradual loss of sensation from the most peripheral aspect of your feet or hands, the numbness creeps up the limbs over time, becoming more and more numb, less and less safe to drive or even walk.

Fortunately, Now there is Hope. Acupuncture Can Help.

We have an 85% success rate in treating Neuropathy. Utilizing special, innovative therapies exclusively available at our clinic, call to see if you are a candidate for treatment in our Neuropathy Program today. Don’t wait another day.

Arthritis Meets Acupuncture

Did You Know… Arthritis is no match for Acupuncture.

 

Acupuncture is over 3,000 years old and has been used for arthritis for centuries. Any arthritis sufferer already knows the cold, damp and windy weather Fall and Winter are famous for flare up one’s arthritis without warning. Many can “feel a storm coming on” hours or days in advance.

Acupuncture helps by boosting circulation, invigorating the stiff, aging body parts with fresh, oxygen rich blood chock full of nutrients where needed most. It also moves the lymphatic system, which we affectionately describe as “the one who takes out the trash,” your lymphatic system is what hurries toxins and inflammation and cellular waste out of your body, flushing through your urinary, bowels and perspiration. We never stop learning at Cloud 9 Acupuncture, and just this year alone we have added three new therapies to help our chronic pain patients.

As we age, we are often prone to becoming nutrient deficient in key factors to healing, such as B Vitamins, Magnesium, and Vitamin C & D, to name a few.

That’s why here at Cloud 9 we’ve added Direct Vitamin Injection Therapy (DVIT) to inject the aforementioned vitamins into an acupuncture point to deliver necessary nutrients directly to the bloodstream to help the body heal faster from injuries.

Speaking of Injections, we are also offering O3 Regenerative Therapy which provides stellar results in regenerating cells and tissue, especially for arthritis or joint degeneration.

Ask your acupuncturist at your next visit about DVIT and O3 Regenerative Therapy to learn more and to see if you are a good candidate for these innovative new therapies.

 

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