04/08/2017
I have always said there is a place for Western Medicine and surgery, but there is also a place for Chinese Medicine and what it can offer in terms of herbs and acupuncture, and in a perfect world the two would co-exist and combine flawlessly.
Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years, as we know, and can be used to treat a wide range of disorders and diseases include hormonal imbalances, allergies such as hayfever, and insomnia. Due to the huge number of deaths and addiction due to opioid usage, there has been a lot of research and focus into the effectiveness of other pain management solutions.
In recent years we have seen an increase in the research around acupuncture in treating pain and painful conditions, such as disc herniation, and rotator cuff injury amongst other pain conditions. This has seen the use of Acupuncture in trials around Australian Hospitals within the Emergency Department including The Northern Hospital in Epping VICTORIA, amongst others.
Previous research has shown that using acupuncture to treat chronic pain is comparable to morphine, but acupuncture is safer and doesn't lead to dependence. Research has shown time and time again that Acupuncture is an alternative to opioid analgesics. Opioid medications that are otherwise used for pain relief in the ED include morphine, fentanyl and oxynorm.
Not all hospitals offer Acupuncture in Australia but due to recent research, excitingly Acupuncture will be available in all hospitals in the United States from 01 January 2018, as a "non pharmacological pain treatment modality". Surely this means that as we see Acupuncture being used in Emergency Rooms in the US, with the shift in medicine we would expect it to gather momentum around the world and thus should see acupuncture in hospitals everywhere. Maybe my fuzzy notion of combining the better parts of both types of medicine isn't actually too far away?
Submissions to Government Agencies As the interest in acupuncture has grown and yet much misinformation regarding acupuncture persists, The Acupuncture Now Foundation has sent in submissions to policymakers in different countries and aided several groups in their submissions. Here is a list of ANF s...