Interesting article form stltoday.com
I first saw acupuncture used at Purdue University over 25 years ago when I went there as a visiting professor. They were doing it on horses and that certainly made a believer of me. While recognizing there is a strong placebo effect of acupuncture, some well designed recent trials have shown a significant advantage of acupuncture over placebo for arthritis of the neck and the back. Acupuncture is safe and as such can be considered an appropriate therapy for some individuals with chronic pain.
Professor Vitaly Napadow from Harvard has recently found that persons with fibromyalgia have a disruption of intrinsic brain connectivity and this is related to their pain. He told me that “Pain harms the brain and acupuncture is a direct path to the pain.”
source:http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/fit-bits/uncategorized/2009/09/poll-would-you-have-acupuncture-for-chronic-pain/
