HealthProfs Blogs

Over the past decade (and billions of dollars later), acupuncture has steadily gained popularity with the American mainstream-- so much that health insurance companies, employers, and even some HMOs are now providing alternative therapy coverage. Read here to see who really benefits--- corporations or the people?

In other news:

Homeless Help

Just in time for winter, a Phoenix based acupuncture school is providing free acupuncture services for the local homeless population, addressing health concerns from cold to addiction. The program focuses primarily on ear acupuncture, which commonly treats various musculoskeletal, psychological, neurological, and cardiac health problems.

Moxybustion Busts Body Aches

Moxybustion, an ancient Chinese therapy that is often used as a supplement to acupuncture, utilizes ground mugwort that is processed into a cigar shaped stick. Practioners then burn the stick near or on specific acupuncture points. The therapy is often used to treat indigestion, shortness of breath, fatigue, menstrual pain, and body aches. Though moxibustion centers are gaining popularity in China, specialists do not hold medical licenses.

New York acupuncturist Nicholas Steadman has developed a way for the needle-phobic to enjoy the benefits of acupuncture: laser acupuncture. Cold laser or low level laser technology is already treating elite athletes and the military for pain relief and injuries, and patients can't feel a thing.

Steadman suggests that laser acupuncture may be more effective than regular acupuncture, since the patient is unable to tell if the laser is on or not, which allows for clean double-blind placebo controlled studies.

So far, clinical trials have showed laser acupuncture producing positive benefits for children with headaches as well.

In Other News:

Placebo: Just Like the Real Thing

Researchers have discovered that acupuncture and placebo (noninsertive) acupuncture have similar benefits in effectively treating chronic back pain, and both methods are superior to typical pain treatment.

Still, there is controversy over the efficacy of acupuncture, as some believe that all acupuncture (real, simulated, or sham) are placebo effects.

Listen Up!

What to Expect When You're Expecting? Most mothers-to-be know that back and pelvic muscle pain are part of the pregnancy process. But they probably didn't expect to ease their aches through ear acupuncture. Researchers at Yale University found that women who had acupuncture needles held in place at three pressure points on their ear reported significant reductions in muscle pain.

The 95-year-old founder of the Rosen Method, a body therapy that combines talk and touch, is still practicing and teaching in the Bay Area; her next workshop is October 23-24. Before World War II, Marion Rosen lived in Germany, where she studied breath- and relaxation-based movement therapy. Her husband was a student of Dr. Carl Jung, and the couple discovered that patients who worked first with Rosen more easily and effectively expressed themselves in psychotherapy sessions. Rosen Method practitioners believe that "the body is a living metaphor of a person's inner state."

In Other News:

Gotta Have a Gimmick
And what a soothing, energy-conserving one this is. A woman in the U.K. has invented "lava shell therapy." Similar to hot stone therapy, the therapist uses sea shells filled with lava powder, minerals, algae, and salt water. The reactive combination generates up to an hour of warmth... no electricity required.

Rehab and Relearn
Polish researchers have found that prompt and long-term physiotherapy--including massage--helps stroke victims compensate for and even regain lost functions.

We talk and chew every single day, so you'd think humans would be experts at dealing with painful jaw disorders, such as temporomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome. But as a TMJ sufferer myself, I know the medical community has few solutions. A doctor once recommended that I eat only soft food! A tooth guard lessens the impact of night-time grinding, but it's an expensive, inconvenient option (which some people unconsciously remove during sleep, rendering it useless). Fortunately, French researchers have found huge improvements in patients after massage of the lateral pterygoid jaw muscle: "Joint clicking was solved in 80% and pain in 50% of the cases." This muscle is the only one involved in opening the jaw; it gets a daily workout and should be tended to. You can even tend to it yourself, according to this article, although you'll have to reach into your mouth to massage it appropriately. Awkward, perhaps, but pain-free consumption of tortilla chips is worth it.

More Self-Help Techniques
Several on-line TMJ forums recommend The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook. It looks like a terrific resource.

Or Book a Techno-Masseuse
Japanese scientists have created an "oral rehabilitation robot" that helps to alleviate jaw pain and dry mouth by massaging the temporal and masseter muscles. Good news: it won't have to reach inside your mouth. Bad news: it's not as adorable as C-3PO.