Tag: Pain
Acupressure Mats As Safe Alternatives To Painkilling Drugs For The Relief Of Pain And Other Conditions
Pain is the body’s natural warning system that tells us something is wrong. It’s essential that you take measures to find relief whether you’re suffering from sleep problems, depression, chronic pain, fatigue, and stress-related illnesses or feel pain due to a physical injury. In Western societies, we turn to what we know all too often. For a quick fix, we turn to drugs. The problem is this quick fix almost always never addresses the underlying cause of the problem and we end up buying a ton of pain medications and run a small fortune on medical bills due to the constant return of the pain. All these hassles can be avoided by simply laying on an Acupressure Mat.
The Chinese have a saying that somewhat goes like this: “Where there is no circulation, there is pain. Where there is no pain, there is circulation.”
Acupressure is a proven healing therapy that uses touch unlike acupuncture which uses needles. Acupressure relies on pressure to help boost the flow of blood in the body. It is one the most natural, invasive, and safest way to alleviate discomfort and pain and to jumpstart the self-healing processes of the body. This therapy is quite inexpensive and convenient and is usually performed in a clinical setting by a qualified therapist.
Using an acupressure mat is the most practical and simplest way to receive acupressure therapy. The mats are very easy to use and can be easily integrated into your everyday routine. You can use them anywhere and anytime you feel like using them. You can place the Acupressure Mat on any flat surface such as the floor, and you can use them also on a sofa or chair.
These mats can relax your body and your mind and relieve fatigue and tiredness.
In acupressure, the therapist presses an acupoint stimulating the point that increases blood flow in a certain area and releases tension and stress as well as toxins that have accumulated in the body. The therapy also helps the body take in more nutrients and oxygen and transports them to every cell in our body. It provides a variety of benefits such as alleviating muscle tension and pain, reenergizing the body, increasing the strength of the immune system, and speeding up the self healing processes of the body. Anyone can also use it to simply relax and wind down.
When you lie on an acupressure mat and relax, you can naturally reenergize yourself and help activate the production and release of oxytocin and endorphins, the pain relieving hormones of the body. You can release these hormones through exercises and once released they can bring in a general sense of mental and physical well being, help alleviate stress, provide comfort to tired and aching muscles, give you a natural high, and relieve pain.
You can use these acupressure mats to boost digestion and metabolism; treat asthma, flu, and colds; activate the immune system; alleviate headaches and migraines; increase your energy levels; and help you get a deeper more restorative sleep.
If you still are in doubt of experiencing the benefits of lying on an acupressure mat, here are a few facts to consider:
? Effectiveness – Almost all people who’ve used it (97 percent) are satisfied of the product
? Private – It’s usually used at home, with no assistance
? Safe – No risk, no chemicals, no needles
? Convenient – It can be used anywhere and anytime you want
? Easy to use – All you have to do is just to lie down on the mat and relax
? Cost effective – It’s significantly less expensive than acupuncture
One specific acupressure mat called the Acuswedemat, is made up of over 14,000 acupoints; compared to its nearest competitor which only has 8,000 points. Acuswedemat is widely used by the Swedish National Dressage Squad’s Elite Riders for both “winding down”, and training.
This mat has actually gone through a series of clinical studies in Russia, the US, and Sweden. It has been scientifically proven to measurably and significantly reduce the severity of pain on patients without causing any adverse side effects.
Ling’s Acupuncture
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Orlando, FL 32806
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Acupuncture Is A Proven Remedy For The Relief of Pain
According to a May 2010 study, conducted by researchers at the Rochester Medical Center, acupuncture in Cleveland definitely works for the relief of pain.
Acupuncture does not rely on conventional Western medical principles and is an alternative form of healing system that has been the subject of intense debate and discussion about whether it just relies on the belief of the patient that it works to deliver results or if it truly works.
In Western medicine, a health problem is directly addressed and for this reason it relies heavily on medications and drugs. Acupuncture, which is a branch of TCM or (Traditional Chinese medicine), follows a more indirect route; acupuncturists believe in and practice the holistic healing of the body instead of focusing on one part of the body. For them, balance between the spirit, mind, and body is of utmost importance, and the manner by which this is established is through correction of the movement of vital energy or “chi”, within the body.
Among the various ancient Chinese medical treatments, acupuncture is probably the most famous in the West. To correct the uneven circulation of energy, acupuncture needles are applied at specific points in the body in order to restore health. For a lot of Western medical researchers, acupuncture is a technique they believe really does not produce any health benefits. According to them, acupuncture treatment should not lead to a cure of illness and that it is unable to return a patient to full health.
Western medicine has a problem because a lot of studies that have been done about acupuncture consistently show that acupuncture truly works and this cannot be refuted. In a lot of instances, success has been achieved after conventional Western treatments have proved unsuccessful in curing the patient. Yes, acupuncture may not be able to remedy every illness and disease any more than western medicine can, and this argument has been used as an excuse by a lot of people in the West to brush it aside and see it as quackery.
The findings from the Rochester Medical Center have actually tested acupuncture to see whether its effects are merely psychosomatic or if it truly addresses health issues. The researchers sought to find whether a desired outcome comes from the patient being manipulated into believing that acupuncture will work, or if the treatment really works.
The Rochester researchers used mice with sore paws. Acupuncture treatment was given to all the mice in the same manner it would be given to humans. Obviously, the mice carry no biases or beliefs on whether the therapy was going to work or not.
A natural painkiller known as adenosine was measured in the mice after the treatment. High amounts of adenosine can help relieve a person when he is experiencing pain. Results of the study showed that the adenosine levels in the mice increased by 20000 percent and 67 percent of the mice experienced a reduction of pain compared to mice not treated with acupuncture.
The study seemed to prove beyond doubt that acupuncture is a bona fide alternative remedy for the relief of pain. To be fair, the outcomes that have been gotten from animal experiments are not quite the same as those obtained from experiments on humans. This is the reason why Rochester researchers refused to support the notion that acupuncture needles can restore balance to the vital energy in the body or that energy flow in the body gone wrong can be corrected.
A patient suffering from pain would only want to find relief from it. Most probably, he will not be interested on whether his body is not balanced or whether the vital energy within him is not flowing smoothly as it normally should. If the illness dissipates or the pain stops, then the patient is happy and the acupuncture treatment is successful.
Besides pain, acupuncture treatment can resolve several other issues including smoking addiction and weight gain. It can help people with fertility problems succeed with IVF treatment, something that in no way associates with the release of natural opioids in the body, as detractors of acupuncture are quick to point out. From all these, we can see that that there’s more to acupuncture than its ability to relieve pain.
Is Sham Acupuncture Just The Same As Real Acupuncture When It Comes To Relief and Management of Pain?
The wealth of scientific research that has been and is being done into acupuncture’s use for various health conditions attests to the legitimacy and potentiality of this treatment, especially for the treatment and management of pain. Much of those studies however have led to the conclusion that acupuncture usually does not outperform sham therapy which calls into question the legitimacy of the treatment itself.
Traditional acupuncture is a procedure that uses thin tiny needles stuck into certain points on the body known as acupoints. Chinese medicine believes that these acupoints are located just above energy channels called meridians in the body. When a blockage develops along the meridians pain and disease develop. The needles are used to remove the blockage to once more allow the free movement of energy in the body. Western medical researchers believe that the mechanism of action is either the stimulation of blood flow or the stimulation of nerves in the body.
The reason why the effectiveness of sham therapy calls into question the legitimacy of real acupuncture is that this implies that whatever benefits are gained from the procedure can be attributed to the placebo effect alone. However, more studies into sham therapy – and, especially, people who gained good results from it – shows that this type of therapy may actually possess pain relieving qualities of its own.
One study suggested that the sensitivity of people to pain may be a factor in knowing whether sham acupuncture was effective (or not) for them. People suffering from systemic pain conditions like fibromyalgia, can find relief from treatments that stimulate sensations in the body designed to reduce pain. Since less sensation in the body is stimulated by sham acupuncture, the conductors of the study believed that only patients with high pain sensitivity would be ideal test subjects for sham acupuncture, since these patients require less stimulation to experience results.
A total of 50 women all suffering from fibromyalgia participated in the study. They were divided into either a traditional acupuncture treatment group or sham group. Prior to the start of the treatment, the pain sensitivity of the participants was measured through a test that exerted pressure on their thumbs, which the participants rated. The neurochemical levels associated with pain sensation were also measured by the researchers. After treatment the thumb pressure test was administered. In sham acupuncture treatment, the needles did not penetrate the skin. This procedure consisted of a gentle pricking with the needles.
The participants who manifested more sensitivity to pain experienced much better improvements in pain sensitivity after sham treatment, compared to the participants who had low sensitivity to begin with, at the end of the study. Both low-sensitivity and high-sensitivity patients had comparable outcomes for traditional acupuncture.
The study showed that using subjects with a high degree of pain sensitivity aren’t likely to produce marked differences in efficacy between real and sham acupuncture treatments. It also indicates that people with high pain sensitivity may need a less intensive form of acupuncture compared to those with less pain sensitivity. Chronic pain sufferers should consider acupuncture in Fort Lauderdale as a worthwhile option to help manage their pain.
Research Confirms Acupuncture’s Ability to Ameliorate Pain
Research shows that acupuncture reduces pain following C-section surgery (and other surgeries) and the use of painkillers in a significant way.
Researchers in Taiwan’s Kaohsiung Medical University did a study that was published in the 2009 edition of the Chinese Medical Journal. In the study, 60 women who had C-section surgery were randomly assigned to either a group that would receive with electro-acupuncture or acupuncture treatment or to a control group for the relief of postsurgical pain. They found that the group treated with acupuncture or electro-acupuncture showed much lower pain scores within a full 24 hours following C-section, used an average 32.5% less morphine, requested morphine treatment an average of 10 minutes later and experienced lesser side-effects related to morphine compared to the control group.
Pain Relief Using Acupuncture Treatment in New York
A traditional Chinese medical practice, acupuncture consists of sticking filform needles into certain areas of the body where energy channels called meridians are located as dictated by the health condition being addressed. An increasing amount of scientific research now validates acupuncture’s ability in addressing a wide variety of health issues, especially pain. Private insurance companies are now providing coverage for this type of treatment.
There have been earlier studies done than the Cesarean study discussed above that have connected acupuncture to lesser usage of painkilling drugs following surgery. In 2008, a Duke University research team did a study which was discussed in a conference of the American Society for Anesthesiology also on 2008. The conference reviewed the results of the study which involved 15 independent clinical trials on pre- and post-surgery acupuncture treatment. They outcome of the study revealed that acupuncture helped reduce the levels of pain in a significant way as well as helped decrease the use of painkilling drugs in patients after surgery regardless if it (acupuncture) was administered before and after surgery.
Because painkillers were used much less, it led to fewer side effects. The subjects who weren’t given acupuncture treatment were 3 ½ times likely to experience urinary retention problems, 1 ½ times more likely to suffer from nausea, 1 3/5 times likelier to experience dizziness, and 3 ½ times more likely to resort to painkillers.
For addressing all types of pain, including, of course, the above-mentioned post-surgical pain, acupuncture seems to be extremely effective. In 2008, the Archives of Internal Medicine published a study in which 1,162 adults all suffering from longstanding lower back pain were randomly divided into either a group that received Western conventional therapy of exercise and medications, a group treated with sham acupuncture or to a group that was given real acupuncture treatment. Results showed that only 27% of the patients who received Western conventional treatment experienced a 33% reduction of pain and betterment in their functional capabilities compared with the 48% and 44% of the ones treated with real acupuncture and sham acupuncture respectively.
In 2012, the Archives of Internal Medicine published a meta-analysis review, about data collated from 29 past studies in which a total of 18,000 individuals participated. The subjects in these studies all suffered from chronic (longstanding) pain caused by shoulder pain, neck pain, back pain, or headaches. The participants were assigned either to conventional Western therapies (physical therapy and medications), sham acupuncture, or real acupuncture. On a pain scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is the lowest score for pain felt and 100 being the highest, the researchers measured an average pain score of 60 at the start of any given study. At the end of the study the real acupuncture group scored an average 30, the score of the sham acupuncture registered 32, while that of the Western conventional treatment group scored an average of 43.
From these outcomes, some researchers theorize that the placebo effect accounts for much of the success of acupuncture’s pain-relieving abilities and that it does truly work; knowing why it works seems irrelevant, states University of California-San Francisco researcher Andrew Avins. He suggested in an article published in in 2012, in the Archives of Internal Medicine, that there is scientific evidence that now justifies acupuncture’s use for patients suffering from acute or chronic pain.