Acupuncture for neck pain?
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The reality is this - opioids have side effects are people are looking for alternative pain management strategies.
Opioid-based painkillers are problematic for several reasons. Their efficacy wane over time and they have been linked to addiction and overdose deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised doctors to restrict their use.
Doctor and patients are now looking to other alternative pain management strategies. Acupuncture has been shown to reduces the need for pharmaceuticals, to make any claims that it's useless, not beneficial or has no role is not congruent with the literature.
“Nonpharmacologic therapies can ameliorate chronic pain while posing substantially less risk to patients. In some instances, other therapies result in better outcomes than opioids.”
Acupuncture Research - 2016 Review
Mechanism of Action
Scientists have been studying potential biological pathways by which needling might relieve pain, most of the research in the past have focused on endogenous opioids.
Another plausible mechanism of action is a localized adenosine response. It has been demonstrated that acupuncture needles trigger a release of adenosine from the surrounding cells into the extracellular fluid, this chemical works to ease pain by reducing inflammation.
Efficacy Research
There is a fair bit of evidence to support the use of acupuncture, furthermore some of the most favorable scientific evidence available is also the newest and least biased. Look at the papers that came out in 2016 alone:
Published in The Journal: Pain
Effectiveness of dry needling for chronic nonspecific neck pain: a randomized, single-blinded, clinical trial.
Published in The Journal: PM&R
Beneficial Effects of Dry Needling for Treatment of Chronic Myofascial Pain Persist for 6 Weeks After Treatment Completion.
Published by The Cochrane Collaborative
Acupuncture for the prevention of tension-type headache.
Published by The Cochrane Collaborative
Acupuncture for neck disorders.
Published in The Journal: Scientific Reports
Acupuncture for musculoskeletal pain: A meta-analysis and meta-regression of sham-controlled randomized clinical trials.
Published in The Journal: Current Pain and Headache Reports
The Role of Acupuncture in Pain Management.
References:
Statement on Opiods from the CDC
Frieden, T. R., & Houry, D. (2016). Reducing the Risks of Relief — The CDC Opioid-Prescribing Guideline. New England Journal of Medicine.
Mechanism of Action
Lund, I., & Lundeberg, T. (2015). Effects triggered in the periphery by acupuncture. Acupuncture and Related Therapies.
Langevin, H. M. (2014). Acupuncture, Connective Tissue, and Peripheral Sensory Modulation. Critical Reviews in Eukaryotic Gene Expression
Tang, Y., Yin, H., Rubini, P., & Illes, P. (2016). Acupuncture-Induced Analgesia: A Neurobiological Basis in Purinergic Signaling. The Neuroscientist.
Efficacy
Cerezo-Téllez, E., Torres-Lacomba, M., Fuentes-Gallardo, I., Perez-Muñoz, M., Mayoral-Del-Moral, O., Lluch-Girbés, E., . . . Falla, D. (2016). Effectiveness of dry needling for chronic nonspecific neck pain. Pain.
Gerber, L. H., Sikdar, S., Aredo, J. V., Armstrong, K., Rosenberger, W. F., Shao, H., & Shah, J. P. (2016). Beneficial Effects of Dry Needling for Treatment of Chronic Myofascial Pain Persist for 6 Weeks After Treatment Completion. Pm&r.
Linde, K., Allais, G., Brinkhaus, B., Fei, Y., Mehring, M., Shin, B., . . . White, A. R. (2016). Acupuncture for the prevention of tension-type headache. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Patil, S., Sen, S., Bral, M., Reddy, S., Bradley, K. K., Cornett, E. M., . . . Kaye, A. D. (2016). The Role of Acupuncture in Pain Management. Current Pain and Headache Reports.
Trinh, K., Graham, N., Irnich, D., Cameron, I. D., & Forget, M. (2016). Acupuncture for neck disorders. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Yuan, Q., Wang, P., Liu, L., Sun, F., Cai, Y., Wu, W., . . . Zhang, Y. (2016). Acupuncture for musculoskeletal pain: A meta-analysis and meta-regression of sham-controlled randomized clinical trials. Scientific Reports.