The good news is that acupuncture really does relieve lower back pain. The better news is that it doesn't matter if the acupuncture is the real thing, with needles piercing the skin, or some kind of fake thing (call it "acupuncture-lite"), with toothpick-like objects just touching the skin.
The Archives of Internal Medicine has just published a study conducted largely at the Center for Health Studies in Seattle, whose results suggest that the short term pain-relieving benefits of real or fake acupuncture were nearly indistinguishable. The researchers looked at 638 adults who suffered from lower back pain, dividing the group into those who received standardized acupuncture, those who received simulated acupuncture, and those who received usual care. Ten acupuncture treatments were provided over a period of seven weeks. The journal reports that after eight weeks, those receiving real or simulated acupuncture had similarly beneficial results, while those receiving other therapies remained in pain. Does the truth hurt? Read an abstract from the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
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This not surprising in that many traditional Japanese Acupuncture masters have been teaching practitioners to just touch the skin with the acupuncture needle or just the insertion tube itself. 350 years of shonishin, pediatric acupuncture without needles, has quite a track record of efficacy. Glad science is ‘proving’ what we in the profession have known all along. Dr. Thomas Duckworth, L.Ac.