Is acupuncture woo?

[SmallHope]

I really want to try something to help with my fertility and mental health.

I eat a very healthy diet, I practice a bit of yoga and mindfulness, I exercise a lot, and I've finished a 3-month course of CBT so I'm doing everything I possibly can but I'm still struggling with low mood and awful periods due to endometriosis.

I'm very unwoo, but has acupuncture helped anyone and is it worth a try?

I'm a physio who has been on an accredited Western Medicine acupuncture course several years ago. I found the course a mixed bag. The understanding of the physiological reactions that occur at the skin, the spinal cord and descending pain pathways when you stick a needle in was interesting, but the focus on accuracy of placing needles of points on the various energy lines (liver, lung etc) I found very odd.
I did the course because I wanted to work in palliative care, where it is frequently used as complimentary to traditional western medicine, however I found myself in a different sphere of health care and never used it. The evidence was simply not robust enough (as reflected in Cochrane reviews and the NICE guidelines) and the risks to my patients (frail elderly) outweighed any claimed benefits. It’s also far too passive, and time and resource consuming to be of any benefit for achieving my patients' therapy goals.

This is interesting as I always thought it was 'woo' but both my GP and Orthopaedic Consultant (one the best in the country, pioneering new treatment) recommended it to me. Not for fertility though but pain management. I'm very skeptical but my GP did send me some links to studies - will see if I can dig them out.

One of the problems with thinking about things like this is that you would expect people like GPS and Consultants to be capable of critical thinking. They often are- but only in their own fields.

I saw an amazing documentary set in s hospital in China . People could opt to have their open heart surgery with orthodox anaesthetic, or with just acupuncture! Acupuncture made it about half the price.

It showed the patients awake and chatting during surgery, it was really eye opening.

So I’d definitely go for totally non woo!

I was cured of an auto immune condition (Adult onset stills disease) by acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine plus dietary changes. Western medicine completely failed me. I was completely sceptical to begin with. I could not comment on fertility but if you have funds it is worth a try in my opinion.

SmallHope, I'm not sure I'd be too focused on the 'no method of action' criticism. Many treatments were effective treatments before their method of action was elucidated. Anaesthetics are problematic in terms of method of action (yes I can see that anaesthetics work empirically).

From a brief skim, one of the issues with acupuncture research that researchers have problems with is about control. Some researchers did develop a needle that was inserted then removed without the patient perceiving the needle didn't stay in place unlike a regular acupuncture needle but even in this case, I understand the needle was inserted and there was still some pressure in the application of the control mechanism so some concerns were raised about the validity of the control comparison.

I have a very, very irregular menstrual cycle and was recommended acupuncture to regulate my ovulation. I went from cycles varying between 2 weeks and 4 months to varying between 32 - 35 days every single month.

I have no idea how it works, but it did! (I also have no idea how my computer works.... but that doesn't stop me using it!)

“It showed the patients awake and chatting during surgery, it was really eye opening.”

I don’t know about the one you saw but many films like this have been shown to be fakes.

My acupuncturist told me that a lot of the studies on how it works are understandably written in various Chinese languages. NICE only considers surveys carried out in English.

Does it work? It has helped with my sleep problem and I don't have as many hot flushes, even now in a warm July. I'm recommending acupuncture to my mother, who has incurable blood cancer with terrible bone pain and would like to come off Fentanyl patches, or at least taper. Her conventional pain relief options are really running out as she has tried almost everything else to relieve it and it either doesn't work or gives her horrible side effects. So yeah, we'll try it. My medical school child, a sceptic about most non-mainstream treatments, thinks it's worth a go, too.

After ttc for a year i went for acupuncture for a year, then fell pregnant naturally. I believe it helped me get pregnant.

As someone has said, it's very difficult to measure it against western medicine because it is a completely different, very complex system that has a different approach to physiology; though it is important to have proper research to in/validate and there does seem to be more research being done into how and why it works (or not).

I don't consider myself a woo person, but I've had two wonderful trained & qualified acupuncturists in my life, both with western medicine backgrounds, and to my mind the results weren't all placebo - and if any were, so be it! I also had treatment from a Chinese doctor (acu & chinese herbs) for a gynae problem that wouldn't resolve and for which western gynae couldn't give me any answers and honestly, it was quite amazing. This particular doc had three clinic walls lined with letters of thanks & baby photos from women who'd tried everything to conceive, the majority of whom were told they were infertile. I think it is worth trying, if you get a good practitioner, and as an adjunct to other medical treatment.

@Abra1de for you and your mum, I'm so sorry for what you're all going through.

Thank you!

I had acupuncture following a mc. It took me 20 months to fall pregnant in the first place but I miscarried at 7 weeks. I had acupuncture and five months later was pregnant again, DS now 7 months.

Whether or not it was a placebo effect, I really felt it helped. I got some talk therapy from my registered acupuncturist and felt happier and more energised. She also continued during my pregnancy (she has treated lots of pregnant women before and always checked to see what she could and couldn't do. I'm a firm believer that it can help and go every few months to keep my body and mind in a good place. OP, I recommend you try it!

My husband was a professional athlete and he and his team all had acupuncture as a matter of course. I find it helps ease back tension and headaches although I'm not sure it helped with fertility. (I eventually stayed pregnant after recurrent miscarriages, but not sure it was down to the acupuncture).

Don't underestimate the power of placebo.

Placebo doesn't bother me. If placebo helps with intolerable pain, that's fine.

Surely you can find a cheaper placebo though?
After all the placebo for morphine is a more effective painkiller than paracetamol.

So, if the placebo effect is fine, it's okay for a medical NHS doctor to give you Smarties if they haven't anything else to help?

Sorry. "medically qualified" not "medical".

Would smarties have a placebo effect?

Would smarties have a placebo effect?

Only if you pick out all the blue ones, tell the patient that they're very strong tablets and might turn their wee green.

“Would smarties have a placebo effect?“

If sold properly to the right patient, yes. Just like any other placebo. Apparently red is the colour that works best.

I had two rounds of radio to my head and neck twenty years apart, the second lot left me with little or no salivary glands, acupuncture gradually restored them to an acceptable level. It took a long time.

The lady I used was Chinese, when I first went to see her, she was giving me the once over and referenced my miscarriage fifteen years previously and before I could confirm or deny she told me it was in the spring, there was something else but at the moment it escapes me.

Sorry. I was obviously being facetious.
But it would be unethical for a "proper doctor" - for want of a better term - to treat someone with a placebo unless eg they were engaged in a medical trial.
I suppose the woo alternative practitioners totally believe in what they do, so I shouldn't mock.
It does make me sad, however, that some people seem prepared to spend a lot of money (which sometimes they can't afford) on these treatments and just think, "Oh well" if it doesn't work rather than having some professional body to complain to about it.