• Home
  • Contact
  • Tai Chi & Qi Gong
  • Bio
  • Blog

Kelsey Healing Arts

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Acupuncture & Chronic Pain
Arthritis of the Knee »

Acupuncture & Allergies

February 26, 2013 by cotterkelsey

    Allergy season is upon us, and there was recently an article on Time.com reporting on a study about acupuncture and allergies.
    The conclusion of the study was that “Acupuncture led to statistically significant improvements in disease-specific quality of life and antihistamine use measures after 8 weeks of treatment compared with sham acupuncture and with [cetirizine (i.e. Zyrtec and Reactine)] alone, but the improvements may not be clinically significant.”
    Sham acupuncture is when needles are not placed in relevant points on the body. It is used as a control group in acupuncture studies. I am not alone in the acupuncture world to be itching for acupuncture studies that compare acupuncture point prescriptions against one another, for there are many different strategies to treat allergies, as opposed to compare real acupuncture against sham acupuncture.
    Real acupuncture in a clinical trial is not quality acupuncture by any stretch of the imagination. Acupuncture works the best when the points selected are customized to an individual. Acupuncture does not function like medication, which is exactly the same composition of chemicals for each patient. Acupuncture points that work well for one person may do nothing for another, and vice versa. An acupuncture study, in attempts to maintain the “gold standard” of blinded control studies, uses the exact same point prescription for every patient. Therefore, acupuncture will frequently produce clinically insignificant results when practiced in a study, because a study by intention does not practice clinical acupuncture.
    Acupuncture is an expensive way to treat allergies, so it is probably only an avenue of pursuit for those who do not respond to, do not wish to, or are unable to take medications. There are Eastern herbal formula designed to treat allergies, which work well in conjunction with acupuncture, which can cut down on the number of visits required and mitigate the cost.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Articles, Research | Tagged acupuncture, acupuncture allergies, allergies, eastern medicine, research |

  • Categories

    • Articles
    • Blog
    • Research
    • Tai Chi & Qi Gong
    • Uncategorized
  • Recent Posts

    • Qigong Curriculum
    • Stress and the Immune System
    • YouTube Channel
    • Five Animal First Set
    • The Three Principles of Qigong/Taiji
  • Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • Kelsey Healing Arts
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Kelsey Healing Arts
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: