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Comments on acupuncture please

73 replies

theladylovescupcakes · 17/08/2015 20:41

I'm struggling with hip pain on one side. Physio has given me exercises to do, but has suggested accupuncture. Is it all bunkum or does anyone have experience of it actually helping with the pain? TIA.

OP posts:
tormentil · 18/08/2015 19:36

A good friend is currently receiving electroacupuncture on the NHS as part of prescribed treatment for chronic pain.

The electro-acupuncturist works in the hospital.

His pain has been chronic for ten years and he rates it at a regular 8 or 9/10 on the 'pain scale'. Steroid injections in the spine have done nothing to decrease the pain.

After three acupuncture treatments, he feels a distinct improvement - down to 7/10. Treatment is ongoing.

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2015 19:36

No. There are lots of things I haven't tried that I know don't work. Crystal healing, homeopathy, reiki, prayer, chakra alignment, palmistry.........they've all been properly tested and been shown not to work better than placebo. Actually, I think prayer worked worse than placebo!

Don't get me wrong- the placebo effect is pretty staggering on occasion. But that's what it is.

Awholelottanosy · 18/08/2015 19:42

And have you been unfortunate enough to experience chronic pain that the NHS can't do anything for?

AbsentMindedNumpty · 18/08/2015 19:45

OP, I went to see a woman who was an osteopath and also practised acupuncture 17 years ago.

Before I got treatment I wouldn't have believed it could work as nothing else had. Over the years I'd spent a lot of money and time trying to fix my terrible back pain, to no avail.

On a weekend visiting my family and attending a big 50th anniversary dinner where I was in agony sitting at the table, my mum suggested I see this practitioner. She worked locally so I said "yes, why not what's the worst that can happen?"

She quickly diagnosed my pelvis was displaced (I knew that this would be the case as a chiropractor had done x-rays a few years previously and said the same thing). She lay me on the bad and did these alarming manipulations which including twisting, pushing, pulling and realigning me. Once she was happy my pelvis was level (my legs were equal length and toes pointing up) she then arranged me for the acupuncture.

I'd never had it before and was terrified. However, I took a deep breath and let it happen. Teresa explained that when my pelvis displaced it caused my muscles to go into a spasm. It meant that I couldn't stand upright properly; it was too painful. My toes pointed outwards not forwards. The only relief came when I lay sideways in the foetal position.

She targeted all the muscles that were affected and used needles of differing sizes. These she inserted and some she twiddled asking me about what I felt. Some needles stayed in longer than others.

When she's finished she said I would not feel better for a couple of days; the relief would not be immediate. I thought, ah well, it was worth a try.

Anyway, a couple of days later I was home, it was a Monday morning and I had to get up early for work. Normally I feared this, because the pain would kick in as soon as I stood up. I say 'stood up' but in reality I scampered crablike to the bathroom, stooped.

But, I stood upright and there was no pain. I looked down and my toes could point forward. I walked normally to the bathroom. I can still remember the incredible grin on my face. It bloody worked!

Over the next ten years I saw her three more times when I felt my pelvis beginning to displace again. This involves a 700+ mile round trip but worth it.

Thinking back, the last time I got treatment was April 2007 when I attended a nieces 21st birthday do. No problems since.

This lady charged £25 per session and on each occasion sorted me in one session. She was amazing. She has retired now though so I don't know where I'll go if it happens again.

HermioneWeasley · 18/08/2015 19:58

From NHS choices

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Acupuncture/Pages/Evidence.aspx

Basically meta analysis has concluded acupuncture is more effective than placebo for some conditions.

I am also very, very anti woo, but I have acupuncture because it's the only thing that helps my chronic fatigue. I am quite prepared to believe it is placebo effect, but nothing else has tapped into that placebo effect and I feel better, so I am quite happy to pay for it. She also treats my shoulder which is a source of chronic pain since an accident a few years ago, and again is the only which was creates a blissful pain free experience for up to 24 hours.

I am quite aware that the plural of anecdote is not data, however.

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2015 20:00

"And have you been unfortunate enough to experience chronic pain that the NHS can't do anything for?"Why is that relevant? Just because someone is desperate is no reason for them to be encouraged to waste hope, money and energy on something which does not work.

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2015 20:02

In fact desperation is all the more reason for a person not to be given false hope

Awholelottanosy · 18/08/2015 20:14

Bertrand, you're not listening! There are many people on here with chronic conditions who have said it has helped them. Why are you discounting their experiences when you have not experienced either their conditions or the treatments? You seem very attached to this, and to your need to be right. Not sure why but also we are doing is encouraging the OP to try something that may help her. Why are you so against that? Taking pain killers your whole life is pretty grim and has unpleasant side effects. Acupuncture won't harm you.

Awholelottanosy · 18/08/2015 20:15

What we are doing, not 'also'

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2015 20:25

"You seem very attached to this, and to your need to be right"

Really? It's not me who's refusing to accept the scientific evidence!

AbsentMindedNumpty · 18/08/2015 20:35

Gosh Bertrand, you're really sounding defensive about peoples' positive experiences with acupuncture.

I guess that, unless you've been in awful agony for years and been unable to find relief, then it is hard for you to understand why someone would be driven try it. I was certainly desperate and I had little hope that it would work as nothing else had.

You obviously haven't tried it and I sincerely hope that you are never driven by extreme pain to have to try it. How can you dismiss mine and others' positive outcomes using acupuncture when you haven't even tried it yourself?

It is sad to read that you are discounting our experiences. The OP will make her own mind up, as I did. If it's not for her then she can continue to search for other remedies.

OP, I wish you the best of luck with your quest and would suggest you search for an experienced combined osteopath/acupuncturist.

HermioneWeasley · 18/08/2015 21:43

Bertrand is entirely within his/her rights to dismiss something as no better than placebo if a meta analysis of clinical research has shown that to be the case. Individual anecdotes are neither here nor there. I do not have to have tried homeopathy to know its bollocks as all the research confirms that.

I'm just not sure that's what the meta analysis on acupuncture is showing though.

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2015 23:34

""Im just not sure that's what the meta analysis on acupuncture is showing though."
That's interesting- how do you read it?

Awholelottanosy · 18/08/2015 23:36

Absentminded I'm glad you found something that gave you such relief. Chronic back pain is awful and if you've never experienced it, you don't know how debilitating it is and how hard it can be to find a treatment that actually works. ( also, great post!)

AbsentMindedNumpty · 19/08/2015 07:25

I would also mention something else. Chinese herbal medicine is something that has become popular in the UK over the past several years and my NDN went to one of these places as a last resort after she had lost twelve pregnancies Sad. Conventional medicine had not helped her to keep the pregnancies, they could not tell her why; what did she have to lose?

Incredibly, after she used the herbal concoction she became pregnant again and went on to give birth - a miracle. Then she did it again a couple of years later.

Frankly I would never have believed it myself had I not known this lady very well. How on earth did it work? Who cares frankly, it is a joy to see her two little ones playing in the street.

HermioneWeasley · 19/08/2015 08:28

bertrand purely going by the NHS website I linked to earlier, my understanding is they were saying there was some evidence for efficacy for some conditions

MollyAir · 19/08/2015 11:11

Quite.

BertrandRussell · 19/08/2015 11:23

May I suggest very careful analysis of the use of language on the NHS site, and then a slightly deeper dig? The NHS site talks about the possibly flawed studies, the subjectivity of analysis and the placebo effect. There have been further studies since Cochrane -you may like to look at them.

LeChien · 19/08/2015 12:15

I'm not 100% sure how the placebo effect works, but in my case, I would imagine that taking a course of steroids and increasing inhaler doses, which has worked brilliantly in the past, would be as effective a placebo as an acupuncture session.
In my case though, repeat GP visits and prescriptions over several months (or years as a child) resulted in no improvement at all.

Ridingthegravytrain · 19/08/2015 12:31

I tried it for 2 conditions and found it to do nothing. But interestingly I know someone who had success using it on her horse

CoteDAzur · 19/08/2015 12:56

"Chinese herbal medicine is something that has become popular in the UK over the past several years and my NDN went to one of these places as a last resort after she had lost twelve pregnancies sad. Conventional medicine had not helped her to keep the pregnancies, they could not tell her why; what did she have to lose? Incredibly, after she used the herbal concoction she became pregnant again and went on to give birth - a miracle."

A miracle would have been a woman without a womb giving birth to a baby.

A woman with a functional womb (with which nobody could find a problem, as you say) having a baby is not a miracle.

BertrandRussell · 19/08/2015 13:06

I know plenty of people who have had babies after multiple losses. There are many on Mumsnet.

Correlation is not causation.

talkinpeace · 17/11/2015 18:36

I found this thread while trying to get evidence about what the consultant has said to a family member.

Basically MRI and Xray have not identified a source of pain
a steroid injection under general anaesthetic has been booked
but the consultant suggested the Acupuncture section of the pain clinic at the hospital in the mean time.

The science of why Acupuncture is better than placebo is pretty obvious to me
and anything to reduce painkiller use
and reduce pain
is worth a shot
if it means being able to walk unaided again

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