14 thoughts on “battlefield acupuncture”

1. Actually it’s been proven that acupuncture does not work. Coincidentally, Bob Park, who writes the news weekly “What’s New” that pretty much all scientists read, talked about this again only yesterday (http://www.bobpark.org/). To summarize, the British Medical Journal did a study and the results are that the effect of acupuncture on pain are so small that they do not even register.

2. I don’t have a scientific explanation but I think the body is like any other piece of equipment. Sometimes it gets, stiff, stuck, wotever and things don’t flow right. Just like kicking a heater sometimes makes it work or shaking an appliance….a needle stuck in our system works the same way. It’s a wakeup jolt. It is pain in a ‘different’ way. A jolt of pain will always jump start the body. Except the kind from the acupuncturist I last had – who made both my hands turn green from the under the skin bleeding and bruising.Anyhoo, you can tell I don’t know what I’m talking about but just for a moment, I wanted to act as if I did. :-)

3. I followed that Bob Park link and read the article < HREF="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/alternativemedicine/4301660/Real-and-fake-acupuncture-can-effectively-relieve-the-pain-of-headaches.html" REL="nofollow">he seems to be referencing<> (he doesn’t give a link), and I don’t interpret it as saying that ‘acupuncture does not work.’ The article says it does altho some of it may be a placebo affect. Here’s < HREF="http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/01January/Pages/Acupunctureandheadaches.aspx" REL="nofollow">an article from the NHS discussing the article<> and the studies, and it has some links at the bottom to the studies.I’ve never had acupunture, and I don’t want to (I’m a wimp). But I’m not in pain either.Things like that are hard to make clinical studies of. One thing I wonder about it the skill of the person administering the acupunture.It certainly seems possible to me that it would work. Thre is no question that we are energy – manipulating that energy has to have some effects. And I’ve known friends who swear it worked for them.There are many types of pain and things that it is used for, and that article was only talking about headaches anyway.I submit that even the ‘fake’ acupunture used in that study could have an effect on the patient’s energy/electrical field.A couple links:< HREF="http://health.howstuffworks.com/acupuncture.htm" REL="nofollow">How It (Accup.) Works<>< HREF="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/homepages/106568753/CD007587.pdf" REL="nofollow">study of 11 trials<> conludes:<>“In the previous version of this review, evidence in support of acupuncture for tension-type headache was considered insufficient. Now, with six additional trials, the authors conclude that acupuncture could be a valuable non-pharmacological tool in patients with frequentepisodic or chronic tension-type headaches.”<>I also don’t have much experience with reiki, but I do a form of energy work that is a distant cousin of reiki. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with energy. It’s true that it does have a pretty woo-woo new agey side to it, but I mostly ignore that part. The people who taught me say that reiki is kinda bogus. I don’t have any scientific proof, but I am positive (from personal experience) that it has some beneficial effects – at least on stress, and sleep and energy levels. And given the time and opportunity, I could prove it via direct exprience. It’s not magic though, and real results are experienced more over time.I’d like to read < HREF="http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2006.5245" REL="nofollow">this study<> that collected results from a bunch of studies on touch modalities, etc, but it’s $39 and I’m not forking that over..

4. As a scientist who’s mostly atheist, I’ve been resistant to any kinds of hokey mystical stuff.I gotta say, though, that after experiencing energy work of reiki, something is happening that I cannot explain. I’ve just had to let go and say that if acupuncture and energy work actually help people, they must do something. I’ve gone into buildings where people have done reiki circles or where energy work was done on the building itself, and the change in the atmosphere of the place is incredible. And I’m comparing an empty building before and after. The scientist in me has just compromised by saying that these things must work, but we just don’t have the scientific tools to learn about it.

5. It isn’t difficult to determine whether acupuncture or prayer or any other “alternative” medicine works. These are the reasons that double blind studies were developed.If you’re a private citizen, by all means, try anything you want, but I absolutely hate that the government is putting taxpayer dollars into this junk. This is a direct consequence of the fact that our science education in the United States is so pathetic that most people can’t understand why repeatable double-blind studies constitutes proof or disproof. (This may not be true of people reading here, but it *is* true in general.)

6. I’m all in favor of double blind studies, I’m not disputing their benefit in general. But I read all of those articles and the study abstracts, and they don’t say that acupuncture didn’t work. They say it did work.Their ‘double blind’ study used needles – just shorter ones. But there are some forms of acupuncture – < HREF="http://health.howstuffworks.com/acupuncture1.htm" REL="nofollow">like Japanese<> – that use shorter needles, so that was not an effective double blind control group in my mind. And there is further discussion of the problems with those studies. And what I was referring to also is the nature of the practice of acupuncture – I don’t trust that one practitioner is as good as another – it’s not like taking a pill which can be very easily quantified.I hope the government checked the cost/benefit of those treatments. I can’t imagine they just did it on a whim. That’s not to say that I agree with much of what the government spends it’s money on, but in this case — I do.

7. I read the BMJ study. One third of participants had real acupuncture, one third had ‘fake’ acupuncture i.e. needles inserted in supposedly non-therapeutic spots, and one third got nothing. There was a huge difference in response between ‘real’ acupuncture and nothing, and a very slight difference between the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’.This could be due to problems with the blinding, with the nature of the initial complaint (tension headache), or with the acupuncture itself. No one is terribly sure.I suspect that it has a lot to do with the placebo effect, and/or with subjects feeling cared for. Acupuncture is very focused. For a few minutes, you’re the centre of a practioner’s world. I think that helps people feel better.

8. No question that the placebo effect is a factor. How much of a factor is a mystery.Human touch is healing. The why’s and wherefores are, as yet, unquantifiable, imo. I would like to be able to quantify/prove everything I believe in. But….I also am open to (and enjoy) some mystery/mystical.

9. Maybe if someone had used acupuncture on George Bush we wouldn’t have to send doctors to Iraq and Afghanistan to use it on soldiers(ha ha). I have no idea if it actually works, but it’s too early to become a member of the door slammers union on the subject.

10. I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) — quite common actually — & from the time I first began having periods, was in misery from them. I could go as long as 6 months without one, then have one that lasted over a month, heavy the entire time to the point of anemia. All western medical science had to offer me was birth control pills, but I'm lousy at taking daily pills, so….In 1994 I went to an acupuncturist for an unrelated reason — i.e., I wasn't seeking help for anything related to PCOS or irregular periods. In fact, the acupuncture helped not only the original problem I went there for, but also — for the first time in my life — regulated my periods. Three or four years later, they started going off-whack again. I went to another acupuncturist, again for unrelated reasons — again, problem solved, & periods completely returned to regularity. At least 10 years now since my last acupuncture appointment, & I'm still regular as clockwork.It didn't cure the PCOS or insulin resistance (dietary changes have been best for that), but regular instead of nightmarishly irregular periods is certainly a benefit.I don't know “how it works” in terms of western science, but that it works for many disorders & imbalances I have no doubt whatsoever. Chinese medicine has a long long history, as long if not longer than that of western medicine. It's not just flash-in-the-pan booga-booga stuff. Something tells me the Chinese would not still be using it if it was just crap.

11. Here’s an extremely critical post about this battlefield acupuncture program at < HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/02/and_i_thought_i_was_exaggerating_when_i.php" REL="nofollow">Respectful Insolence – a great sci/skeptic blog.<>Here is the upshot of the post:Unfortunately, ideologues like Col. Niemtzow have hijacked the military’s desire to do whatever it can to help wounded soldiers and used it to infiltrate the military with their ideology and pseudoscience. That they have succeeded based on essentially no scientifically valid studies is a disgrace. Our wounded soldiers deserve better. Every man and woman serving their country deserve better. They deserve science- and evidence-based medicine, not quackery.—I live with chronic neuropathic pain and have never been helped by acupuncture.

12. <>mel<>, sorry to hear about your PCOS. I’m glad you’ve found something that helps.<>doug<>, thanks for that link. If acupuncture works–and it seems to help some people, though I’d hesitate to suggest I know why–then it’s probably only with certain ailments. It helped me sleep that one time. But I’ve never bothered to try it again.

13. Doug, the fact that acupuncture doesn't work for you does not mean it's useless for everyone. It also doesn't mean that it's “quackery”.

14. Leigh,

    I wasn't clear in my post. I was quoting the article I linked to:
    http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/02/and_i_thought_i_was_exaggerating_when_i.php

    I would never draw any conclusions about a treatment just from its effect on me, I have nowhere near enough personal data to decide if acupuncture is quackery or real – an experiment with N=1 is bad science. (I'll happily take any placebo effect I can score, though ;^)

    I have not reviewed current research on acupuncture but I've grown to respect the surgeon/scientist author of the blog “Respectful Insolence”, whose conclusion is that current research suggests acupuncture is ineffective.

    The blogger called acupuncture “quackery” and I quoted him sloppily. I'm sure he'd be willing to discuss acupuncture with you on his blog.

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