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Most people know about acupuncture. The use of needles to stimulate healing originated in China thousands of years ago and has spread around the world. Originally based on the idea that these improve the flow of "qi" in the body’s meridian system, doctors and other modern practitioners also use acupuncture to treat injuries in muscles, tendons, ligaments and other parts of the body.
Background
Auricular acupuncture is completely different. It was discovered in the 1950s by Paul Nogier, a neurologist in France. Nogier had several patients whose chronic pain was cured by a local healer, and identified tiny scars on specific parts of their ears where they had been treated. He started paying attention to his patients’ ears, and noted a consistent link between the location of his patients’ body pain and the most sensitive points on their ears. Treating these points with needles was so successful that he dedicated his life to this new medical treatment, wrote books, conducted research and taught hundreds of medical doctors from Europe and around the world.
If you have pain anywhere, auricular acupuncture can help; in many cases the results are long-lasting or permanent. It also works well for symptoms that are related to imbalance in the nervous system, the immune system or the hormone system. At the end of a session, most people notice a reduction in stress and muscle tension, improves mood and creates a sense of calm and well-being that are clear evidence that ‘something has happened’. This makes it an excellent tool that stimulates healing and a useful part of a long-term approach to health and wellness.
Rationale
Modern research has confirmed that there really is a link between ear points and the location of pain in the body.[1] This is because the thousands of nerve endings on the ear are linked to thousands of different parts of the brain. This has been demonstrated by a group of French and German researchers using functional MRI imaging to see which parts of the brain ‘light up’ when needles are inserted into ear points.[2] There are other healing systems that are based on this principle that one part of the body can mirror the whole, including foot reflexology in China, hand reflexology in Korea and eye iridology in Europe, but auricular acupuncture is the first system to be tested in clinical trials.
The strongest evidence for the benefit of auricular acupuncture is in the treatment of pain. Many well-conducted clinical trials have shown that it reduces pain during and after surgery,[3] reduces the need for narcotics while in hospital,[4] reduces cancer pain,[5] acute pain and chronic pain.[6] More trials …
Our first experiences with auricular acupuncture at the Seekers Centre came from our work with Acudetox. This is a protocol for treating addiction by stabilizing electrical imbalances in the brain using needles placed in very specific ear points every day for three weeks. A neurosurgeon in Malaysia had been treating post-surgical pain with auricular acupuncture, and his patients who also struggled with addiction problems consistently reported that they lost their interest in drug use after this treatment. A psychiatrist who was visiting him from New York was so taken aback by this that he developed and formalized a protocol for addiction that was a home-run success. It has since been used by hundreds of doctors from around the world.
Dr Brian Bailey is an Ottawa-based colleague who uses it for much more than treating addiction. He has been supervising acudetox courses for over a decade, and has found it helpful in treating stress and a wide range of mental and emotional issues. He calls it acudestress, and has paired the acupuncture with counseling that helps people integrate the changes in their brain with a new way of seeing themselves and their behavior.
After observing a series of impressive success stories in patients we referred to acudetox, our physicians underwent basic training in German auricular acupuncture. This method incorporates the powerful idea of treating interference fields in the body which forms the basis of German neural therapy. Infections, fractures, surgical scars and other wounds can sometimes heal with long-lasting nerve dysfunction in the affected area. These create ‘electrical noise’ in the nervous system, which can refer pain to other areas and promote allergy, inflammation, hormone imbalance and other problems.
German auricular acupuncture was developed by Dr Frank Bahr, a medical doctor who was a student of Dr Nogier’s and adapted it to include neural therapy. In our opinion, this is the most effective acupuncture system in existence because it focuses treatment on sources of electrical disturbance in the brain instead of treating the symptoms that result from them. Today, over 10,000 medical doctors are trained in ear and body acupuncture by the German Acupuncture Association.
What to expect
As with most therapies, auricular acupuncture treatment begins with a detailed assessment. This includes a brief review of your symptoms, but it focuses on the interference fields that may be triggering them.
Sometimes we administer short treatments or standardized protocols in conjunction with hypnosis, IV infusions or other therapies. These are usually very quick and simple to do, and can be done seated without any special preparation or assessment. Stand-alone auricular acupuncture sessions are done while you are lying down. A typical treatment will involve both ears and include 6-8 needles in total.
The points that need treatment are identified using the pulse, or an electronic device called a pointfinder. For those with an interest in technology, a pointfinder is a microvoltmeter that measures the potential difference between two coaxial electrodes loaded on springs in the presence of a tiny detection current. The points with the greatest measured potential difference, measured on a sensitivity scale of 0 to 10, are the ones that most need treatment.
The needles used are made of stainless steel, and some are coated in silver or gold. These metals have different electrical properties that allow them to correct imbalances with a positive or negative electrical potential. Worldwide, there have been no problems reported in people with allergies to jewellery, nickel or other metals.
Ear acupuncture hurts a little bit more than body acupuncture. This is because the ears are more sensitive, the needles are slightly larger and the most tender points are used because they are the ones that are most in need of treatment. The good news is that ear acupuncture is also much more effective than body acupuncture so you should expect to see results quickly. In fact, most acupuncturists who study auricular medicine eventually stop needling the body because working with the ears is so much more effective.
There is almost always significant improvement in symptoms within six treatments. This is what you should expect. If this does not occur, it is usually due to an obstacle to cure. You should meet with your integrative physician to discuss what this might be.
In some cases, a semi-permanent needle may be inserted at the end of a session. These are special needles that are designed to be left in the ear until they fall out on their own. This may take anywhere from a few hours up to two weeks. They have a deeper healing effect, but for sensitive patients they can be too strong and lead to adverse reactions, so we limit their use to difficult cases.
In some cases, symptoms can worsen or new symptoms can appear. These can be concerning to patients, but they are usually very short-term (one day at most) and are a simply a part of the healing response. This means that they are things that the body needs to do in order to heal itself. Usually, when symptoms that a person has had for many years get worse after treatment, they will then disappear forever.
What makes this treatment so powerful is the simple fact that it stimulates healing of electrical disturbances in the brain. If we remember that the brain controls the entire nervous system – and nerves influence every bodily function and even the healing response itself, we begin to see that this may be one of the most profound, elegant and simple ways to heal the mind and body that medicine has ever seen. Try it – you’ll like it.
[1] Physical examination paper
[2] Alimi paper
[3] Usichenko
[4] Usichenko
[5] Hopefully this study is positive
[6] systematic review |
