Recently, I have received several requests for information on battlefield acupuncture, a term first used in 2001 by my friend and colleague Col. Richard Niemtzow, MD, PhD, who serves as a consultant for complementary and alternative medicine to the Surgeon General of the Air Force. I have served with him on the board of Directors of the Auriculotherapy Certification Institute.
It was recently announced that the U.S. Air Force will begin training physicians being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in a specific type of treatment. The treatment uses small needles in the skin of the ear to block pain in as few as five minutes and can last for several days or longer. The procedure was initially introduced in 2008 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC), where it was applied to wounded service members and local patients for pain relief, with significant results. The hospital, located near Ramstein Air Base in Germany, is the largest and most modern U.S. military medical facility outside the United States.
One of the pain specialists at LRMC personally experienced a 25 percent increased range of motion and a 50 percent reduction in pain for chronic shoulder and upper back pain he had endured for several years. As a result of his outstanding success, this pain specialist recruited his most challenging patients, for whom traditional pain treatment had offered limited relief. Within minutes of the needles being inserted, many said their pain was reduced by up to 75 percent. A 25 percent reduction would be considered a success with traditional pain medications.
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