The Effectiveness of Acupuncture as a Complementary Therapy for COPD

COPD or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has turned into the third deadliest disease in the United States behind cardiovascular disease and cancer. Considered a progressive illness, COPD worsens over time with no real cure for this condition.

Western physicians often advise their patients to stop smoking. They either prescribe pharmaceutical medications that carry toxic substances and harmful side effects or oxygen bottles. Conventional Western medicine’s aim is to control the disease rather than cure it. They may recommend lung transplant surgery as the final resort to stop the worsening of the disease.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease often strikes people who smoke. Chronic smokers are the highest risk group for this lung condition. But this disease can also develop in people who are regularly subjected to asbestos filaments, chemical pollutants and toxic air. Exposure to these lethal substances can lead to COPD and/or irreparable lung damage.

Asthma is not considered a type of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema are some of the conditions bracketed under this condition. Children with autoimmune problems are the most affected age group for asthma. Children whose asthma is due to psychosomatic causes usually experience a gradual resolution of their problem over time. This is not the case with COPD. This is a disease that is not caused by an autoimmune condition and symptoms exacerbate as the person ages.

Wheezing and breathing difficulty are common and telltale signs of a lung condition. COPD patients have productive cough (their cough expels out phlegm) while asthma patients have dry unproductive coughs. There are medications prescribed for both conditions although they are not often necessarily interchangeable.

Asthmatics rarely have the need to breathe from oxygen bottles except in really life-threatening situations; COPD sufferers, on the other hand, need to use these bottles daily to survive. Besides the obvious disparity in mortality rates, asthma and COPD have relatively few differences in between.

During an asthma attack, the patient experiences a constriction in his/her bronchial tubes. Asthma attacks however, are not necessarily chronic and do not occur on a daily basis. But in COPD patients, their symptoms are experienced on a daily basis due to the thickening and loss of loss of elasticity of their respiratory tract. The symptoms can be felt in varying degrees, and as I said, are experienced every day.

Tarzana Acupuncture and COPD – A Japanese Study

Recently, the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine performed a double-blind placebo test involving 70 patients with COPD all using medications and bracketed into two groups. The modalities that were used included acupuncture that was administered on one group and placebo (sham) acupuncture given to the other group.

Both treatments were given to the patients for 12 weeks. All patients were tested for dyspnea on exertion after they did a 6 minute walk during the pre-testing (before the tests began) and post-testing periods (after the testing period ended). A Borg scale was used to measure the perceived intensity of exertion on the walk.

According to the study’s conductors the group treated with acupuncture exhibited higher Borg scores, which meant they had more energy and capacity to endure and put forth more exercise, while showing less shortness of breath or DOE after the exercise walk as compared to the group treated with placebo acupuncture.

The heads of the study stated that acupuncture can be a really helpful complementary treatment to conventional medicine for the treatment of dyspnea.

Conclusion

If you are really desirous of health, it is then not a good idea to use toxic therapies and ignore safe and effective ones. The above-mentioned study, though admirable, excluded the use of Chinese herbal medicine and other Traditional Chinese Medicine’s (TCM) modalities. Chinese herbal formulas are often used along with acupuncture by TCM practitioners to help treat COPD.

The good news is that more and more Americans are using Western supplements that have been proven effective in resolving inflammation and removing hardened tissues. Some of these supplements contain a proteolytic known as serrapeptase that can dissolve inflammation, blood clots, and even plaque in the arteries.

Serrapeptase has the ability to dissolve mucus, proteins and scar tissues that have been inflamed. It is surprisingly inexpensive and readily available.

There was a story of a man who had a severe case of emphysema COPD. He was wheelchair-bound and breathing with the aid of an oxygen tank. Someone recommended him serrapeptase in lieu of the steroids he was taking. His turnaround was remarkable.