Tag: pain

Chronic pain is often associated with getting older, but new figures indicate that about 10 per cent of those aged 12 to 44 also experience extreme aches and discomfort. Figures from Statistics Canada released Wednesday show that nine per cent of males in this age group and 12 per cent of females reported chronic pain in 2007-2008. The prevalence is relatively low among the 12-to-17 age group, but rises to 14 per cent of males and 17 per cent of females in those aged 35 to 44.

A dog owner has told of her delight after her pet regained her health – through the ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture.

Scottie dog Heather was left in severe pain after developing a problem with a disc in her spine.

Conventional medicine did little to help the nine-year-old animal, who still had trouble walking three months after her injury despite rest and medication. But owner Helen Anthony, from Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire, found an unexpected solution when her pet was referred to a vet who practises acupuncture, which involves inserting needles into the body for therapeutic purposes.

Acupuncture is a process which is treated with the help of needles. The needles are inserted in to various parts of the body to relieve pain of for other therapeutic purposes. The origins of acupuncture are still not confirmed that in which century it has started, but we know that it has been originated from China.
In the modern times acupuncture treatments received a lot of criticism from the modern Chinese civil war and Chinese communist party leaders labeling acupuncture with different names such as superstitious and backward and creating a hurdle in scientific progress.

Acupuncture gained popularity when American president Richard Nixon visited China in 1972 and was shown a patient under going a surgery through acupuncture and the patient was fully awake and during the same time he was accompanied by a reporter of New York Times and he received a treatment through acupuncture and was stunned after receiving the treatment. He was so impressed with the treatment that he wrote an article relating to acupuncture which then gained its popularity.

While plenty of people who receive acupuncture for the relief of chronic pain swear by its effectiveness, the western medical community has long remained skeptical of this increasingly popular alternative treatment. More and more research studies, however, are confirming the idea that acupuncture has its place in western medicine. The latest, a study out of the University Hospital in Essen, Germany, suggests that acupuncture transforms the way the brain processes pain.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers led by Dr. Nina Theysohn from the University Hospital’s department of diagnostic and interventional radiology and neuroradiology were able to observe the areas of the brain that typically deal with pain perception and response. By studying 18 healthy volunteers who received an electronic pain stimulus to their left ankles, radiologists discovered that when acupuncture needles were placed on the right side of the subjects’ bodies, the activation of the brain’s pain processing areas was substantially reduced.

Although 40 NFL players swear by its methods, acupuncture isn’t a hugely popular treatment method among professional football players.

But for the members of the Jets, Giants, Steelers, Bengals, and Dolphins that Lisa Ripi treats, acupuncture is a treatment they can’t live without.

Ripi focuses on players’ sore areas to increase blood flow. Players tend to get pain in different spots depending on their positions, so Ripi typically treats the legs and shoulders of wide receivers, the elbows and backs of offensive linemen, the throwing shoulders of quarterbacks, the backs of defensive linemen, and the hamstrings of running backs. Her clients say that the treatment makes them feel substantially more loose and flexible.

And it will provide food for thought for detractors of the ancient Chinese art, including many scientists. They claim the benefits of the practice are all in the mind and that patients benefit from the ‘placebo effect’ in which care, attention and the simple belief that the treatment will work lead to improvements in health.

The research team from the University Hospital in Essen, Germany, studied whether giving acupuncture affected how the brain reacted to electric shocks.

It’s potentially hard to find any place where there is no arguing. Usually it’s the hostility within families that has given way to different forms of depression. When we dwell in the depth of its reasons, they are mainly insignificant. The Las Vegas domestic abuse attorney or the Las Vegas domestic violence attorney hears the similar stories everyday that results from this disturbance. Even when the problems of such people are lessened, they still require mental relaxation.

For that purpose, a growing practice is that of acupuncture. Though modern science is not still able to understand why actually acupuncture works, it has been proven to have significant healing effects. Once the acupuncture pins are inserted on the body, energy will start to circulate in a better way. Since the body is interconnected, so the acupuncture spots cannot be limited to little spots on the body, it casts its effects throughout the body.

You know quite well that acupuncture has its origin from the Chinese culture. They are people who have their own practices and beliefs which they happen to preserve and pass down from generation to generation. Acupuncture is also one such practice that has been maintained over the centuries. It happens to be one of their holistic practices that they practice in today’s world just as they used to in older times. The main idea of the Chinese acupuncture rests in the fact that balancing the whole energy inside the body is essential for establishing complete harmony within the body, mind and soul. You may be aware that some medical practitioners apply medical acupuncture to help in their surgeries however, the practices vary slightly from the ancient Chinese ones.

GRIFFITH University School of Medicine study is hoping to help hay-fever sufferers with the prick of a needle.

John McDonald, a Southport acupuncturist of 40 years, and his research team are planning to reveal how acupuncture can treat irritating and chronic allergies via changes to the immune system.

Hay fever was more prevalent on the Gold Coast, where the allergy season was up to five times longer than the average two-month period of Melbourne, he said. This was because the Coast’s pollen season was longer.

About 15 per cent of Australians suffer from hay fever, commonly caused by grass pollen and dust mite.

Acupuncture, one of the oldest forms of healing, is catching on in America. Despite modern medicine’s pills and high-tech equipment, what sometimes works is this simple technique.

Acupuncturist David Gaglione of Stroudsburg said, “Dis-ease is lack of ease, that is, tension in the mind or the body. By consistently experiencing a pattern of greater ease through acupuncture, the patient feels true change.”

Acupuncture gives the body a reasonable chance to do what it knows how to do. It does it again and again until the body gets the idea by repeating the natural cycles.

Acupuncture applies pressure to points along pathways of the body. “I apply pressure to a point with my fingers or with needles to do the job,” he said.

The needles — for those scared of them — are not syringe needles but extremely narrow. Most feel only pressure or a slight tingling.

A Griffith Health Institute research project is investigating how acupuncture helps to treat irritating and chronic allergies to potentially develop novel medicine for hay fever.

School of Medicine researcher John McDonald said previous research had shown that acupuncture helped to treat allergy and hay fever symptoms, but had not studied how it did this.

“As a practicing acupuncturist for 40 years, I have seen how effectively acupuncture can improve allergic conditions,” Mr McDonald said.

“However there is little understanding about acupuncture’s effects on our immune and nervous systems.”

More than 3.17 million Australians or 15.1 per cent of the population suffer from hay fever, commonly caused by grass pollen and dust mite.

Mr McDonald said current medication included antihistamines, which were only effective in treating early stages of the allergic response.