Home Electroacupuncture for Persistent Postsurgical Pain: A Patient's Report

Teaching self-acupuncture survey report

BACKGROUND

People have been teaching self-acupuncture (SA) in the United Kingdom since 1977. More recently, a small body of research has been conducted on SA. However, detailed guidelines on teaching and delivery of SA have so far, to our knowledge, not been developed.

METHODS

Acupuncturists were invited to participate in an online survey about their experiences of teaching SA. Data from the survey were extracted, analysed using descriptive statistics and translated into SA teaching guidelines.

RESULTS

One hundred thirty-eight acupuncturists completed the survey. Nineteen percent of participants had taught SA. The most common symptoms for which acupuncturists taught SA were pain, nausea, anxiety, hot flushes, headaches/migraines and breathlessness. The six most commonly taught traditional acupuncture point locations were LI4, ST36, SP6, PC6, LR3 and TE5. No participants had received reports of adverse effects from their patients.

CONCLUSION

Acupuncturists who teach SA find it to be an acceptable and safe option for patients. The presented data have important implications for guiding the practice of SA.

Self-Administered Electroacupuncture Provides Symptomatic Relief in a Patient with Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction: A Patient's Report

A 46-year-old woman with differentially diagnosed sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (SOD) type III is described. After two and a half years of managing the condition with a conventional medical/pharmacological approach, the patient's symptoms worsened and she sought complementary approaches, starting traditional acupuncture treatment before receiving training from a practitioner of Western medical acupuncture to self-administer electroacupuncture. The frequency and intensity of severe night-time pain attacks reduced and, additionally, self-administered manual acupuncture during pain attacks resulted in quick, lasting, complete symptomatic pain resolution. This is the first published case report using electroacupuncture in the clinical management of this condition. It shows patient-administered electroacupuncture as a low-risk well-tolerated procedure which provided effective pain relief and reduced the frequency and severity of pain attacks. Self-administered acupuncture could be considered as a potential complementary medical approach for patients with SOD type III before resorting to endoscopic SO manometry and sphincterotomy which carry significant associated risks of pancreatitis.

Training in self-needling and performing it as part of a clinical trial: the practitioner and patient experience

OBJECTIVE

To explore the experience of training and performing self-needling from both the practitioners' and patients' perspective.

METHODS

A qualitative study was conducted using focus groups and interviews, nested within our multi-site randomised controlled trial, Acupuncture for Cancer-Related Fatigue in Patients with Breast Cancer. Patients allocated to self-needling across two UK study sites and all therapists who were involved in the trial were invited to participate. The interviews/focus groups were then transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically by the process of content analysis.

RESULTS

Of the 67 eligible patients, 8 (12%) contributed to the focus groups and 15 practitioners (100%), contributed to the study by either attending a focus group or being interviewed. Themes identified for patients included: the allocation to self-needling, teaching techniques and practical considerations and whether they would self-needle again. Themes identified for practitioners included: views on self-needling, teaching self-needling and future implications of self-needling.

CONCLUSIONS

Self-needling was found to be acceptable to, and manageable by, patients, and enthusiastically adopted by most practitioners. Methods of teaching self-needling need to be developed and evaluated with guidelines recommended for best practice.