Numerous articles came out today about the effects of decreasing the need for pain medicine following surgery. Of course, this came along with an onslaught of articles refuting the success of acupuncture for IVF, but I wanted to focus on the positive.
Studies find acupuncture cuts post-surgical pain
Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:35pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The use of acupuncture before and during surgery reduces patients' post-operative pain as well as the need for pain-killing medication, researchers said on Tuesday.
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina analyzed the results of 15 clinical trials on the effectiveness of acupuncture -- a practice that originated in China of inserting thin needles into specific body points.
They concluded that it is valuable for pain control in surgery patients.
The 15 trials showed that patients getting acupuncture before or during various types of
operations had significantly less pain afterward than patients who did not get acupuncture.
These patients also required less morphine or other opioid pain medication after surgery, which reduced the side effects like nausea and vomiting from these types of drugs, the researchers said.
In terms of pain-drug side effects, the acupuncture patients experienced 1.5 times lower rates of nausea, 1.6 times fewer reports of dizziness and 3.5 times fewer cases of urinary retention compared to the other patients, the study found.
These findings augment a growing body of evidence on the value of acupuncture in improving the surgical experience for patients, the researchers said.
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