Pain and Inflammation
Around a third of the UK population reports suffering from a chronic pain condition, often accompanied by significant emotional distress, functional disability and absence from work. Common conditions that fall into this category include fibromyalgia, myofascial pain and chronic neck, back and pelvic pain.
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The effectiveness of acupuncture to treat certain types of pain has been widely researched and acknowledged. The use of prescription medication cannot always be avoided but increasingly, General Practitioners (GPs) are looking for effective, long term and less invasive ways to treat their patient’s pain and inflammation. The publication of a guideline in June 2021 by the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) no longer endorsed the use of painkillers, instead directing doctors to offer patients with primary chronic pain one of four recommended treatments: exercise, talk therapy, acupuncture & anti-depressants. You can read this document here.
This guideline underlines the importance of appropriate assessment, careful drug choice, exercise programmes, psychological therapies, and consideration of acupuncture in improving the experience and outcomes of care for people with chronic pain
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(National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2021)
Back Pain and Sciatica
Research collated by the British Acupuncture Council indicates that acupuncture has been shown to relieve back pain and sciatica by:
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stimulating nerves in muscles to release endorphins and change how pain is processed in the brain
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reducing inflammation
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improving muscle tightness and joint mobility by increasing local micro-circulation
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promoting regeneration of the sciatic nerve.
For more information, please go to www.acupuncture.org.uk. The British Acupuncture Council have also produced the videos below which you may find useful.
Evidence supporting the use of acupuncture in other painful conditions and inflammation
Official peer-reviewed scientific publications from various healthcare bodies and research groups around the world recommend that acupuncture be considered for a number of conditions, with the strongest support for conditions such as:
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Headaches, migraines and migraine prevention, (NICE 2021, Linde et al. 2016)
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Allergic rhinitis (including hayfever) (World Health Organisation 2002, Witt et al. 2009, Yin et al. 2020)
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Fibromyalgia (World Health Organisation 2002, Zhang et al. 2019)
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Osteoarthritis of the knee, neck pain (Witt et al. 2006, Vickers et al. 2017)
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Post-operative dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction (National Institute of Health 1997, World Health Organisation 2002, de Camargo 2014, Goldstein 2016)
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Tennis elbow (World Health Organisation 2002)
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Frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) (Asheghan et al. 2016, Ben-Arie et al. 2020)
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Sports injuries (Urroz et al. 2013, Yang et al. 2016, Kang et al. 2021)
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Chronic musculoskeletal pain (Vickers et al. 2017)
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Chronic primary pain (NICE 2021)
