Acupuncture for Back Pain

Acupuncture for back pain is a very old tradition that involves the ancient practice of introducing needles into specific points in the body. The practice dates back thousands of years to China when they used to use needles made of bamboo. Certain groups of points seemed to be beneficial for treating certain types of diseases and over the years this knowledge grew into a map of specific acupuncture points. The lines along which these points lie are called meridians. There are 14 main meridians identified and approximately 700 points.

Over time, as our understanding of the science of pain has increased, the way in which acupuncture works has been more accepted into modern medical thinking. There are therefore two main schools of thought about acupuncture:

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

The TCM approach believes that the body is infused with a life force or energy called Ch’i which flows around the body. An obstruction in this energy leads to deficiencies and illness and a traditional Chinese acupuncturist would aim to locate where any excesses and deficiencies lie. Treatment of appropriate acupuncture points would then be used to try and restore the flow of energy into the system.

Western Approach

The western approach to acupuncture believes that inserting needles causes physiological changes in the body which alters our pain response. There are several theories on what changes exactly take place but it is clear that the bodies own pain reliving chemical, endorphins, are released during acupuncture. This approach to acupuncture does not require the needles to be placed in any specific points.

Acupuncture for back pain

There has been conflicting evidence about whether acupuncture for back pain is effective or not. Research published in 2006 (1) suggested small improvements using acupuncture for back pain over usual care. However, a newer study (2) has recently been published looking at the effectiveness of acupuncture for back pain. This study took a large sample of 1162 patients and split them into three groups. One group had usual medical care, the second group had traditional acupuncture and the third group had acupuncture where the needles were placed at random and not in acupuncture points. Interestingly both the acupuncture groups did better that the usual treatment group but there was really no difference between the more traditional type of acupuncture and the more western style.

So…does acupuncture for low back pain work?

It looks like the answer is yes, but we are not really sure if it is because of a placebo effect or if it is caused by changes in the pain response.

References

1. K J Thomas, H MacPherson, L Thorpe, J Brazier, M Fitter, M J Campbell, M Roman, S J Walters, and J Nicholl

Randomised controlled trial of a short course of traditional acupuncture compared with usual care for persistent non-specific low back pain

BMJ, Sep 2006; 333: 623 ; doi:10.1136/bmj.38878.907361.7C

2. Michael Haake, PhD, MD; Hans-Helge Müller, PhD; Carmen Schade-Brittinger; Heinz D. Basler, PhD; Helmut Schäfer, PhD; Christoph Maier, PhD, MD; Heinz G. Endres, MD; Hans J. Trampisch, PhD; Albrecht Molsberger, PhD, MD

German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for Chronic Low Back Pain Randomized, Multicenter, Blinded, Parallel-Group Trial With 3 Groups

Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:1892-1898.

Return to Back Pain Relief for an overview of other treatments for lower back pain.

12-Nov-2007