Recovering From Stroke with Acupuncture

Q: I had a stroke 7 years ago. It was due to a blood clot in the brain. I am making a good … but I am curious to know if … would benefit me. TimA: Tim, the best time to get …

Q: I had a stroke 7 years ago. It was due to a blood clot in the brain. I am making a good recovery,Guest Posting but I am curious to know if acupuncture would benefit me.
Tim

A: Tim, the best time to get acupuncture for stroke is immediately afterwards – ideally while still in the hospital, if the docs will allow it. Seven years is a long time to wait for acupuncture. But it still may help you… You won’t know unless you try it.

Scalp Acupuncture
Usually scalp style acupuncture is used for stroke. Needles are “threaded” along the scalp underneath the skin. There are at least three different scalp systems (Dr. Jiao Shun Fa’s original style from the 1970s, Dr. Zhu’s, and Dr. Yamamoto’s styles). Call local acupuncturists and find out if they have experience with scalp acupuncture.

How Many Treatments?
It may take 10-20 treatments to get results. In China, they treat patients every day. That’s not financially realistic here, but 2 or 3 times per week is good. In your case – after 7 years – it may take sustained and intense stimulus to make a change.

Complementary Therapies
You can also take herbal formulas to balance out the constitutional issues that led to the stroke, and help repair the damage. Acupuncture can be combined with physical rehab. It can improve both motor function (ability to move muscles) and sensory (ability to feel). You may recover function to some degree, but in more serious strokes there may be no response.

Will it Work for Me?
It’s hard to say whether an individual will respond and how much- partner with the acupuncturist – they will get to know you case thoroughly, integrate what they’re doing with your other medical providers. See the acupuncturist until you hit a plateau. Then your acupuncturist may try another system or strategy.

Stroke and Acupuncture Research
What’s clear from several studies is that very severe stroke patients may be less likely to respond to acupuncture. This issue has not been thoroughly researched. Typically, American researchers have used inadequate acupuncture (style, points, and frequency of treatments). They conduct and review studies using points that Chinese acupuncturists would not use, and then conclude that acupuncture doesn’t work. I say, “No, it’s your brain that doesn’t work, because you don’t do a thorough literature review before designing your studies!”

As James Rotchford, MD, (a medical doctor and acupuncturist who has reviewed hundreds of acupuncture research studies and reviews on his website, www.acubriefs.com) mentions below, there are many approaches within acupuncture. Scalp styles (there are 3 – who knows which is most effective when – a good research topic) appear to be best for neurological conditions like stroke, MS, and post-concussion syndrome. To study body acupuncture points for stroke demonstrates unfamiliarity with the work that has been done thus far.

Is the acupuncture (style, points, and frequency of treatments) studied in most research considered the most effective kind by acupuncture experts?

It is not.

Why study acupuncture points and styles that clinicians themselves don’t think work?

Three possibilities come to mind:

Arrogance: “Even though Chinese have been doing acupuncture for thousands of years, they don’t know anything about it.” This isn’t so implausible – mainstream American docs and researchers already ignore European research – why not Chinese, too? If their methodology differs from the drug-model, it’s because they aren’t as advanced as us. And if we disagree with the results, the methodology is criticized. Otherwise, it’s fine. Psychological studies of the research review process have proven this bias.
Idiocy: It’s hard to imagine that someone smart enough to do research isn’t smart enough to read the literature, but I suppose it’s possible, or
Conspiracy: “Let’s do the wrong acupuncture on purpose so we have proof that acupuncture doesn’t work.” This would be fool’s work, since there is already incontrovertible evidence that it does.
If the studies suck, then why review them?

Because a review of multiple studies carries more weight than just one study. It’s easier to convince people with a review.

The major issue with research reviews is that if the studies were inadequate in the first place, then the review’s conclusions will be wrong. Until the methodology and study designs are improved, what’s the point?

Again, we suggest researchers review the Chinese medicine literature. Rotchford advocates outcome studies rather than drug-style RCT’s. In outcome studies, no

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How Acupuncture Works And What Conditions it Can Treat

How does acupuncture therapy work?

Acupuncture is a type of treatment that includes embedding flimsy needles through an individual’s skin to explicitly focus on the body.

The research proposes that it can help decrease pain, and it is used for a wide scope of different issues.

What is acupuncture?

Acupuncture includes embedding needles at specific parts of the body.

An acupuncurist will embed needles into an individual’s body with the point of adjusting their energy.

This,Guest Posting it is asserted, can help support prosperity and may fix a few ailments.

Conditions are used for incorporating various types of pain, for example, cerebral pains, pulse issues, and challenging cough, among others.

How can it work?

Customary Chinese medication clarifies that wellbeing is the aftereffect of an agreeable parity of the reciprocal limits of “yin” and “yang” of the existence power known as “qi,” articulated “chi.” Illness is supposed to be the outcome of an unevenness of the powers.

Qi is said to move through meridians, or pathways, in the human body. These meridians and energy streams are available through 350 acupuncture focuses in the body.

Embedding needles into these focuses with fitting blends is said to bring the energy stream again into appropriate position.

There is no logical confirmation that the meridians of acupuncture focuses exist, and it is difficult to demonstrate that they either do or don’t, however various researchers recommend that acupuncture works for certain conditions.

A few specialists have used neuroscience to clarify acupuncture. Acupuncture focuses are viewed as spots where nerves, muscles, and connective tissue can be animated. The incitement expands blood stream, while simultaneously setting off the movement of the body’s regular painkillers.

It is hard to set up examinations using logical controls, on account of the intrusive idea of acupuncture. In a clinical report, a focus group would need to go through or a fake treatment, for results to be contrasted and those of real acupuncture.

A few investigations have reasoned that acupuncture offers comparative advantages to a patient as a fake treatment, however others have shown that there are some genuine advantages.

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Examination completed in Germany has demonstrated that acupuncture may help alleviate pressure cerebral pains and headaches.

The NCCIH note that it has been demonstrated to help in instances of:

low back pain
neck pain
osteoarthritis
knee pain
Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
Biliary colic
Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
Dysentery, acute bacillary
Dysmenorrhoea, primary
Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm)
Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
Headache
Hypertension, essential
Hypotension, primary
Induction of labor
Knee pain
Leukopenia
Low back pain
Malposition of fetus, correction
Morning sickness
Nausea and vomiting
Neck pain
Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
Periarthritis of shoulder
Postoperative pain
Renal colic
Rheumatoid arthritis
Sciatica
Sprain
Stroke
Tennis elbow

They list extra problems that may profit by acupuncture, however which require further logical affirmation.

In 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded various conditions in which they state acupuncture has been demonstrated successful.

These include:

sciatica
facial pain
dental pain
tennis elbow
morning disorder
high and low pulse
excruciating periods
looseness of the bowels
rheumatoid joint inflammation
Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteritis or due to gastrointestinal spasm)
Acne vulgaris
Alcohol dependence and detoxification
Bell’s palsy
Bronchial asthma
Cancer pain
Cardiac neurosis
Cholecystitis, chronic, with acute exacerbation
Cholelithiasis
Competition stress syndrome
Craniocerebral injury, closed
Diabetes mellitus, non-insulin-dependent
Earache
Epidemic haemorrhagic fever
Epistaxis, simple (without generalized or local disease)
Eye pain due to subconjunctival injection
Female infertility
Facial spasm
Female urethral syndrome
Fibromyalgia and fasciitis
Gastrokinetic disturbance
Gouty arthritis
Hepatitis B virus carrier status
Herpes zoster (human (alpha) herpesvirus 3)
Hyperlipaemia
Hypo-ovarianism
InsomniaLabour pain
Lactation, deficiency
Male sexual dysfunction, non-organic
Ménière disease
Neuralgia, post-herpetic
Neurodermatitis
Obesity
Opium, cocaine and heroin dependence
Osteoarthritis
Pain due to endoscopic examination
Pain in thromboangiitis obliterans
Polycystic ovary syndrome (Stein-Leventhal syndrome)
Post-extubation in children
Postoperative convalescence
Premenstrual syndrome
Prostatitis, chronic
Pruritus
Radicular and pseudoradicular pain syndrome
Raynaud syndrome, primary
Recurrent lower urinary-tract infection
Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
Retention of urine, traumatic
Schizophrenia
Sialism, drug-induced (excessive salivation)
Sjögren syndrome
Sore throat (including tonsillitis)
Spine pain, acute
Stiff neck
Temporomandibular joint dysfunction
Tietze syndrome
Tobacco dependence
Tourette syndrome
Ulcerative colitis, chronic
Urolithiasis
Vascular dementia
Whooping cough (pertussis)
cerebral pain
headache
unfavorably susceptible rhinitis
chemotherapy-actuated queasiness and retching
some gastric conditions, including peptic ulcer

Different conditions for which the WHO state that acupuncture may help however more proof is required include:

neuralgia
spine pain
solid neck
fibromyalgia
Tourette condition
vascular dementia

The WHO additionally recommends that it might help treat various diseases, including some urinary contaminations and scourge hemorrhagic fever.

They bring up, in any case, that “lone public wellbeing specialists can decide the ailments, manifestations, and conditions for which acupuncture treatment can be suggested.”

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