Acupuncture and electro-acupuncture to treat chronic pain

See also personal experiences of acupuncture

The information on this page is a summary, written by me (Jon Miles) of information from the book The Biology of Acupuncture, by George A Ulett and Songping Han. The book is based on research into the effectiveness of acupuncture. It reports that acupuncture can be effective in reducing pain, but says that traditional explanations of how it works are based on myth rather than reality. Recent research has identified simpler and more effective ways of applying the technique.

Traditional acupuncture

• Acupuncture can reduce pain in about 70% of people. Some people (and some animals) have little or no response to acupuncture.
• Research shows that acupuncture works for three reasons: (1) because of the placebo effect, (2) because it causes the body to release endorphins (which are like opiate drugs), and (3) because it causes changes in the nervous system. Its effect is nothing to do with Qi or 'energy meridians'.
• Most of the traditional acupuncture points are useless. The authors of this book limit themselves to 75 points found to be useful. A point in the hand has been found to be particularly effective for pain relief.
• The pain relief provided by acupuncture can be doubled by continuously twirling the needles or by connecting the needles to a source of electrical stimulation.

Electro-acupuncture, or acupoint

• Instead of inserting needles through the skin, electrodes may be stuck on the surface of the skin. When electrical stimulation is applied through these electrodes, it has the same effect as applying it through needles. This method is always preferable to inserting needles. This is known as electro-acupuncture or acupoint. The equipment for doing this is very similar to that used for TENS.
• Different frequencies of electrical stimulation cause different endorphins to be released. An electro-acupuncture unit which switches between the frequencies of 2 hertz and 100 hertz every 3 seconds has therefore been produced. It is called Hans's Acupoint and Nerve Stimulator, Model LY257. It is available from Healthtronics in Singapore.
• Treatment for chronic pain should normally consist of electro-acupuncture of the hand point and also of a point close to the source of the pain.
• Giving the patient the tri-cyclic anti-depressant chlorimipramine can increase the effectiveness of electro-acupuncture.

Timing of treatment

• The electro-acupuncture treatment is most effective when given in sessions of 30 minutes once or twice a week. Longer or more frequent treatments may actually decrease its effectiveness in some cases.
• If there is no effect after 10 treatments, it is unlikely that acupuncture is going to work, and it should be discontinued.
• When the level of chronic pain has been reduced by half, the frequency of treatment should be reduced to once every two weeks.

Many people with coccydynia have tried traditional acupuncture - put 'acupuncture' into the search box at the top of the page to see their stories. Some people have found it effective in reducing or removing their pain, but most have found that it didn't work for them, or only worked for a short time. If you want to try it, remember that treatments that remove the pain have drawbacks. For instance, if your pain is caused by an unstable coccyx, and you can't feel the pain of that any more, then you may well cause further damage to it without realising it.

But if your only problem is the pain, then it may be worth trying. Five years after my operation to remove my coccyx, I had about 80% less pain than before the operation. But I still wanted to get rid of the remaining pain. I therefore bought an LY257 stimulator (see the links above).

It cost me 350 Singapore dollars plus carriage (about 210 US dollars, 170 Euros at the time of writing). After using it for a couple of months, my pain level reduced significantly, and I would now say that I am 90% better than before the operation. The timing of this improvement could be coincidence, of course, and I might have got better without the use of this device. There is no way to tell. But I will, of course, continue to use it, hoping that it caused my recent improvement, and that it could produce further improvement. You can read my story here.

Updated 2004-09-19