Neuropathy

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 RCTs^56,60,61,62 used validated CTS-specific scales (Table 2) and reported significant improvement with manual acupuncture^56,60,62 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.