Janet Hafner, a 64-year-old diabetes patient, has been able to control her blood sugar, so that she no longer needs to take diabetes medication. Anita Rudd has had just one cold this past year - and no visits to the doctors - which she attributes to a regimen of herbal remedies, including vitamin D and Turmeric. The cost? Just $80.

So does alternative medicine, or what in the industry is called "integrative medicine," work? Can it help people stay healthy and cut their healthcare costs? Dr. Chasse Bailey-Dorton, an integrative medicine expert, says that "with the help of our doctor many of us can ditch the prescriptions and maintain our health through alternative medicines. With the economic situation right now and how expensive pharmaceuticals and insurance is, we are looking for an alternative."

Integrative medicine respects the body's natural ability to heal itself and offers treatment for the patient - mind, body and spirit. It combines conventional treatments with complementary therapies and has been shown to be effective in treating a wide range of health conditions, from heart disease and diabetes to allergies, cancer and depression.

At Saylor Wellness our goal is to help get patients off prescription medicines, or at least, to help them lower their dosage.

Did you know that people with back pain may get longer-lasting improvement with acupuncture than with standard treatments like physiotherapy and regular painkillers. This is what a large new study has found.

What do we know already?

Many people suffer from long-lasting pain in the lower back. It's one of the most common reasons why people visit a doctor. And there's not much agreement about how best to treat long-term back pain.

Until now, there haven't been many good quality studies into the use of acupuncture for back pain. Most studies have been quite small, had problems with the way they were carried out, or were too short, so we don't know how long the effect of treatment lasted.

Traditional Chinese acupuncture is based on the theory that energy travels around your body along pathways called meridians. This energy flow can become blocked, causing pain. Acupuncturists insert thin, sterile needles through the skin at specific points on these meridians where the energy (known as 'chi') is thought to be blocked. These needles are then used to unblock the chi and restore balance in the body. Acupuncture theory says this is why it works for pain.

What does the new study say?
The study compared different types of treatment: traditional Chinese acupuncture and standard treatments such as physiotherapy, massage, heat therapy and taking painkillers regularly. Everyone had 10 half-hour sessions with a therapist, usually at two sessions a week. Researchers interviewed the patients throughout the study and for six months afterwards, to see how much effect the treatments had on people's back pain.

Traditional Chinese acupuncture worked well to improve back pain for almost half the people in the study. They had much less back pain, even six months later.

Acupuncture worked for many more people than standard treatments. Only about a quarter of people having conventional therapies had a big improvement in pain that lasted six months.

The people having standard therapies had a mixture of treatments, including physiotherapy, massage and heat therapy. They also took painkiller medicines. They saw a therapist or a doctor as often, and for as long, as the people having acupuncture. Not many studies have compared acupuncture to regular conventional therapies in this way.

People having acupuncture were allowed to take painkillers when they felt they needed them. But if they needed to take them regularly (more than 2 days a week), the researchers didn't include their results as successful acupuncture treatment. That's because the painkillers, not the acupuncture, might have been having more effect.

The findings were quite surprising. Firstly, acupuncture worked much better than the conventional therapies.

This study was carried out by researchers from several universities in Germany, including the University of Regensburg, Philipps-University Marburg and Ruhr-University Bochum. It was published in the US medical journal, Archives of Internal Medicine.

This was a big, good-quality study of more than 1000 people. It was designed very carefully to get the most reliable answers about treatment for back pain. There were no major problems with the way it was carried out.

The people having standard therapies had a mixture of treatments and pain relief medicine. Some of these treatments (for example physiotherapy, heat treatment) might have worked better than others, but the study doesn't tell us which ones worked better. So it's possible some of the conventional therapies might have worked as well as acupuncture, but the results from other conventional therapies that aren't as good have hidden this result.

What does this mean for you?
Lots of people have back pain. For some people, the pain can be long-lasting and cause a lot of distress and disability. If you're in that position, this study gives you hope that acupuncture can help.

Give us a call for a free evaluation.  727-938-9966

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