Historical Perspective on Chiropractic and Akupunktur

Good morning, everyone. My name is David Shurtleff. I’m the Deputy Director for NCCAM, and it’s my pleasure this morning to welcome and introduce Dr. Richard Deyo as our speaker for NCCAM’s second integrative medicine lecture for 2014. Dr. Deyo is the Kaiser Permanente Professor of Evidence-Based Family Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, Oregon. Before joining OHSU in 2007, Dr. Deyo was the Co-Director, Center for Cost and Outcomes Research at the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Deyo has a longstanding interest and is a recognized leader in research in the study of the clinical interventions and treatment of back pain.

He has published extensively on the topic, with over 300 publications, and has been a member of the Federally funded panel that wrote guidelines for the care of acute low-back pain problems, and he is currently deputy editor of the journal Spine. So, as we all know, according to the IOM, chronic pain affects approximately 100 million American adults–more than the total affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined. Pain also costs the nation up to $635 billion each year in medical treatment and lost productivity. So, clearly a huge public-health crisis we face in thinking about and treating pain. So today Dr. Deyo will present his research that has examined complementary health care approaches such as massage and acupuncture for the treatment of back pain, and the title of his presentation is “Manipulating the Pain: Chiropractic and Other Alternative Treatments for Back Pain.” So please welcome Dr.

Deyo. DR. RICHARD A. DEYO: Well, thank you and good morning. It’s really a pleasure and a privilege for me to be here. I appreciate the invitation to come and talk a little bit about the research that we’ve been doing in the great Pacific Northwest having to do with a variety of treatments for chronic back pain but complementary and alternative treatments in particular. I thought what I would do is spend a couple of slides just talking about what I think are some of the sources of the mistrust and skepticism that mutually exists between complementary and alternative practitioners and the regular medical profession.

I’ll talk then about some of the methodologic challenges that we faced in trying to study complementary and alternative treatments. And then I’ll go into a discussion of some of the randomized trials that we’ve done in Seattle, primarily with my colleagues at Group Health Cooperative, that have focused on chiropractic care, acupuncture, and massage, which are in fact the most common complementary and alternative treatments for back pain. And then I’ll talk a little bit about some of the cost implications at least of these kinds of treatments.

The origins of chiropractic go back to the late 1800s when D. D. Palmer, who was a magnetic healer in the Midwest, claimed to have cured a janitor’s deafness by manipulating his neck. Palmer subsequently went on to coin the term “chiropractic”, dealing with therapy by hand, and he founded the first school of chiropractic in 1897. Palmer and the early chiropractors came to believe that 95 percent of all diseases were caused by misaligned vertebrae. And as a result, they actually rejected the germ theory, and a consequence of that of course was that they rejected the notion of vaccines and drugs and so forth, and basically were rejecting a lot of the emerging science that I think now is well accepted. Even today, you see what some would consider to be extravagant claims for treating things like congestive heart failure or diabetes by chiropractic manipulation, and I’m going to avoid that argument and just focus on back pain, which is really still the most common problem that’s addressed by chiropractors. The animosity between the conventional medical world and the chiropractic world probably peaked in the 1960s when the American Medical Association formed a Committee on Quackery that was really largely devoted to eliminating the chiropractic profession.

And in turn, the JAMA editor at the time was dubbed by the chiropractors a “medical Mussolini” for his efforts to try to eliminate chiropractic. So you can appreciate there was plenty of ill will to go around, and I’d argue that’s changed substantially over the last 10 or 20 years. The origins of acupuncture go back much, much further. Maybe 1000 B.C. are the first records that we have of something that looks like acupuncture probably in China.

It was postulated that there were these meridians with a flow of life energy that existed and are depicted in illustrations like this one. But there’s really been no known anatomical basis for these meridians. Nonetheless, acupuncture surged in popularity after Nixon visited China in 1972 and had acupuncture demonstrated for him. And again, there are sometimes claims that seem to many extravagant, such as major open-heart surgery being done just under acupuncture anesthesia, a claim that apparently has been substantially exaggerated. .

We think the oposite. Boel Akupunktur

Ear Acupuncture for Weight Loss

Hi there I’m Dr. Badrian Lharsen today I’m gonna show you my protocol for auriculotherapy for weight control.

akupunktur for øjne

Now, Auriculotherapy, sometimes called ear acupuncture is a great way to help people who want to lose weight when you combine it with a sensible diet, maybe some exercise. We’ll be treating several points today, and I’m gonna be using this Stimplus Pro which is an excellent tool for treating auriculotherapy points because in one step it will locate and treat a point and it’s super fast and easy to use. I’m also gonna be using the chart from the Auriculo 3D software which has the weight control protocol on it. So to start out, the first point in going to treat is called Shen Men, and you can hear the indicator on the Stimplus pro as I locate the point — there it is, right there, and I just push the button to treat. Treat for a few seconds, and treating Shen Men helps wake up the ear and helps activate the rest of the points.

Shen Men also has a calming, stress-free kind of an effect on the whole body, so it helps the patient relax and be comfortable with the treatment. Next, we’re gonna go straight to the appetite control point. There it is right there. And appetite control point obviously, does exactly what you think it would do it, helps control those cravings for food. Appetite control point works best when used in conjunction with some other points, so we’re going to go ahead and treat mouth point, few seconds on that, then we move over here, and we’ll treat the stomach point, and then we’ll move over small intestine point. And that triad; mouth, stomach, and small intestine when used in conjunction with appetite control, helps alleviate the craving to eat, the desire to have food in your stomach and to be busy digesting it.

Next because it’s not just food cravings that can cause weight gain but also there can be endocrine issues when hormones aren’t balanced properly then you can’t process and digest your foods properly. So we’re going to treat the master endocrine point. Now it’s located where it’s a little bit more difficult to see which is why I appreciate the Auriculo 3D software. Being able to see that in three dimensions helps you see the point is located where you can get to it, kind of right up in here, right there, so we’ll treat that for a few seconds — the endocrine master point.

And then we’ll finish up with one more point because excess eating is often mood-related, we want to treat the antidepressant point. If we can help keep that mood elevated, then stress eating in mood eating will be reduced greatly. So there’s an antidepressant point right there, treat that for a few seconds, and you’ll notice I’m not using needles, nothing invasive, no pain, no blood, something that is quite easy, quite comfortable for the patient. Next, to help continue this, I’m going to be adding ear seeds. Ear seeds are really useful because the patient can then go home and continue treatment for several days. Now today’s patient is my friend Kimberley Thompson, she’s a licensed acupuncturist at Meridian Family Acupuncture, she uses this protocol in her practice and uses the seeds all the time, and her patients enjoy having the opportunity to continue that treatment.

 

So I’m going to start by taking one of my ear seeds, I’m going to place it right over here, on the appetite control point. And then I’m going to instruct the patient whenever there’s a craving, “I want you to just press on that seeds for a few seconds.” And that extra pressure is going to help stimulate that point and help you control those cravings. We’ll go ahead and add that, we’ll have one here for the mouth, put one in for stomach, and I’m going to go ahead and add one for an anti-depressant, help Kimberly keeper mood up which will decrease the desire to eat. And so, again, anytime there’s a craving, press on each one of these in turn for a few seconds, after a day or two, they will get rather tender, but that’s good because it provides good stimulation. Now the great thing about auriculotherapy, you can use it to treat just about anything. Pain in the body, internal issues, there are protocols for almost everything — and if you have the Auriculo 3D software, you can look up any protocol, you can treat it right then right there on the spot.

So you can go to Auriculo3D.com if you’re looking for that auriculotherapy software. If you’re looking for the Stimplus Pro, go StimplusPro online, you’ll find that it’s affordable, it’s a great tool, always keep one on hand. So, until next time I’m Dr. Larsen, thanks for watching.

 

As found on Youtube

Acupuncture | Q&A

So integrative medicine means taking a team approach to healthcare, and that can be by bringing modalities that are different from what is typically a Western biomedical treatment. And that could be something like using massage or using meditation or using acupuncture in conjunction with those traditional therapies. To give the patient a more optimal outcome, a more positive experience, and that the entire team of providers is communicating and making sure that the treatment plan is communicated to the patient. And that everyone’s on the same page the whole time.

akupunkturbehandling

From a modern biological perspective, acupuncture is stimulating the body to balance itself. And it does that through complex neurochemical pathways that affect the immune system, the nervous system, and the inflammatory process. Now from the traditional Eastern perspective, the theory explains that our bodies are a microcosm of the natural world and that there is energy at play that animates us, that makes us alive.

And each of our organs contains a type of energy that’s call, Chi. And that Chi that energy travels through the body through pathways and we call those pathways meridians. And along those pathways, there are points where that energy is said to collect, and each of those points has very specific functions. And it’s by stimulating those very precise, very specific points that we’re able to affect certain changes in the body depending on what we’re treating. No, acupuncture is a very relaxing treatment, feels very good. The placement of the needles stimulates your body’s abiiity to relieve pain and releasing endorphins. A lot of patients fall asleep and leave an acupuncture treatment feeling very good. So acupuncture can treat a wide range of conditions, just about anything that might affect a patient’s quality of life in the long term.

Here in the gastroenterology department, I see patients with things like Crohn’s disease, colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, sometimes gastroparesis. But acupuncture actually can treat a much broader range of things. And I do see all kinds of different conditions here in my practice. And that could be anything from joint pain, orthopedic sports injuries, a lot of women’s health issues, menopause, infertility, PMS, anything that causes pain. Things that are aggravated by stress, things that are mediated by an inflammatory process. Acupuncture is very, very effective for. The number of treatments that a patient might require for any given condition is going to vary widely from case to case, just like it does in any medical modality. It’s important to speak with a licensed acupuncturist who can give you more targeted information depending on what it is that you’re looking for.

How severe a condition is, how long it’s been a problem, the overall more global health of the patient are all things that are taken into consideration. But usually acupuncture is performed in a series of treatments, kind of like a course of antibiotics, you could think of it that way, and the effect is cumulative.

As found on Youtube

We Ordered Acupuncture Online

Today I’ll be trying an acupressure mat from Amazon. – My upper back is real fucked up.

I look at multiple different screens, and I do get a lot of neck pain. – I have something called degenerative disk disease which sounds like way more serious than it is. – I’ve had chronic back pain for the last four years. I do suffer from moderate scoliosis which I’ve had for about 18 years. – I go to Chinatown, and I have them like really just get into it. – I’ve been in lots of different physical therapy. I’ve tried prescription pain medication. – I’d say I’m at like a six out of ten. – I’ve only been at work for two hours, and my pain level is already a seven, so I’m hoping that this works. – I’m like so open to trying things to relieve my back pain. – The fact that it’s from Amazon is fine with me because I love Amazon.

Akupunktur

I trust it. I think. – I mean I’m putting my hand on here, and it’s already stinging. – Should I take my shirt off or… – I imagine the end is where I put my head and then I just kind of lay down. – I want maximum effectiveness from this high-quality Amazon technology. (light music) What’s it like? Oooooh. – Oh! – It just feels prickly. – Like a massage, like a bunch of fingers all together going all in my back. – It kind of feels like lying on a Brillo pad. – It feels good on my back. It does not feel good on the head. – Like the best head scratch, I’ve ever had. – It’s like getting all up in the cranial areas. Now I’m feeling kind of relaxed. – I’m curious to know what this would be like with no shirt on ‘cuz I’d imagine it hurts a little bit.

– Right. – It seems like there’s a lot of little things on my head. It’s like little ants crawling. – Ow. – Oh, my God. I don’t think I could ever sleep on this. – I don’t know why I started doing this. – This thing here I think is doing well especially if you just move around a little bit. – Ow. – It’s hurting my ear. – I do like a little dancing. – I prefer laying down not on this. – I’ve spent like thousands of dollars on pain relief so for me 40 bucks are like yup, I’ll try it.

– I hope I feel better when I stand up. – Oh. – Oh, owww. Are there marks on my back? – I think it was relaxing, but you all seem concerned now. – I feel like I just took a nap. – I don’t feel that different. – You know, a little more relaxed, a little more limber. – It feels like when you sit like on a lounge chair with no beach towel on it, and you know that you have like lines in your back. I have that but like times a thousand ‘cuz it’s a lot of little holes. – I don’t feel as much neck pain. My mobility is improved. – I probably won’t try this again just because for me and my specific back condition I don’t think it will be helpful. I think other means will be more effective. – I think I’d purchase it. $40 seems like not that much to pay if you consider having to go and pay for a massage or pay for an acupuncturist. – I would spend my money on naked yoga or like burritos ‘cuz those are relaxing as well.

I might still be trying to steal the mat afterward. – The day after I used the mat I woke up feeling no pain at all. I don’t know if it was just a coincidence or not, but I might change my mind about this mat. (light music) ♫ We’re here to play our part.

As found on Youtube