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Does Back Acupuncture Work and Understanding Back Acupuncture

Posted by Admin on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 10:45 PM

Before starting this article, I would like to be upfront and honest with you and say, we do not know that back acupuncture works, but we do not know that it doesn’t either. Due to conflicting studies, back acupuncture is technically a theory because it has not worked for some people, but it has relieved others of their critical lower back pain. So I will simply provide you with the facts, and you can form your own opinion from there.

Back acupuncture is when dry needles are inserted into the skin a specific points called acupuncture points. Then, according to the ancient theory, when the needles go into the acupuncture points, they are freeing up the blockage of energy within our lines of life energy that are responsible for health and illness. So, basically it is saying that we have lines of life energy flowing throughout our body, and when they get clogged, we get back pain. But when we get a back acupuncture, then our back pain is healed.

One of the best studies for back acupuncture was conducted by Doctor Endres. His study included a random group of 1,100 people. These people were split into three separate groups: back acupuncture, spam acupuncture, and standard therapy including anti-inflammatory drugs, heating pads, and messages. The results after six months showed that 47% of patients with back acupuncture showed improvement, 44% people from spam acupuncture showed improvement, and 27% of people from the standard therapy.

While these numbers may seem quite a bit higher than the standard therapy, there are many factors that go into it. Did psychology play a factor? Did the people who had the acupuncture believe that something different was going to happen, so they are making themselves believe even though the pain may be the same? Or did the people using standard treatment get disheartened because they did not believe it was going to work because it was the “same old, same old.”

Also, this study proves one very important piece of information. Being the percentages between acupuncture and spam acupuncture were so close, it almost disproves the theory all together. Acupuncture is when the needles are inserted into particular places and manipulated. But spam acupuncture is when the needles are stuck in at random places in your back and not manipulated.

This simply proves that if this is really helping people relieve their back pain, it has nothing to do with the ancient theory. Almost the same results were shown when the needles were not inserted into the acupuncture points, proving that the “lines of life energy” are nonexistent.

The theory is still being analyzed and tested, hoping to understand these results and find out what is really causing the patient to feel relief when they have a back acupuncture. The question, “does back acupuncture work?” will live on for quite some time until scientists can prove or disprove the theory. Until then, we are to form our own opinion about back acupuncture.