Acupuncture treatment for back pain

If you are someone who has to deal with chronic back pain, then you probably know how hard it is to get affective treatment that works on a regular basis without having to rely on long term drugs or surgical options. However, there has been some research that has found that acupuncture treatment for back pain could prove to be the helpful solution that many are searching for. Reading this you may find yourself a little skeptical. After all, acupuncture is considered by many in western society to be something that is primitive and foreign, but the truth is that many people have found comfort from this ancient form of medicine.

First, you should probably better understand what acupuncture is before you see how it can correlate to helping people with back pain. The practice of acupuncture is using a specialized needle (known as a filiform) to insert into the human body at various stress points to help relieve pain. In fact, this practice is one that is still often used by eastern doctors after surgical procedures as a form of pain relief instead of medication. This is why some people (both doctors and patients) have found that using acupuncture treatment for back pain is a viable option for chronic sufferers who have tried other alternatives with no (or limited) success.

One thing to take into consideration if you are someone who might be considering acupuncture treatment for back pain, is that it is not an instantaneous solution to your problem. Often times you will be recommended to go through with a schedule that will last for approximately two to three months depending on the severity of your problem. This may pose a problem for someone who is uncomfortable with the idea of needles, but the benefits could be well worth the investment of your time.

In fact, a recent study found that patients who underwent twice weekly acupuncture treatment for back pain for a two month period experienced better results than those who were treated by conventional western medicine. And, the immediate results were not the only things that appeared to be better as patients who were re-examined a full year after the series of acupuncture treatments were found to be better functioning and with less back pain than those who had undergone the traditional treatments. The ratio was that sixty-five percent of the patients who had undergone the acupuncture treatment for back pain had seen considerable improvements, while just fifty percent of those who had undergone conventional therapy saw improvements.

This diversity between patients who were given medicine, physical therapy, and surgery, for their back problems, as opposed to those that went through acupuncture treatment for back pain is something that should definitely be considered by both patients and doctors as a viable option. Many scientists and researchers claim that acupuncture is actually a more reliable and safer alternative to many of the drug therapy alternatives that people are prescribed for back pain on a regular basis.

The reason that acupuncture treatment for back pain is considered to be a safer alternative than many of the drug therapy treatment options on the market is because there are no long term side effects from acupuncture. While it may be possible for you to develop a dependency on drugs, this is unlikely to occur with acupuncture. Not to mention the fact that if drugs and physical therapy do not help to resolve your pain you could face surgery. The reason why acupuncture works so well is not something that is completely understood by scientists, but the truth is that it is an option that can be helpful to chronic back pain sufferers.

Last updated on Apr 4th, 2010 and filed under Alternative Medicine. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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