HEALTH WITH CANCER NATURALLY by Denise Wiesner L.Ac.: post surgery

Showing posts with label post surgery. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Will Chinese Medicine Help Basketball Star Yao Ming?

The decision of NBA superstar Yao Ming to head to China to seek traditional Chinese medical treatment for his stress fracture has orthopedic physicians and traditional medicine experts at odds over whether the healing techniques will do any good.

Basketball star Yao Ming has returned to his home country of China, reportedly to seek traditional treatments for a stress fracture in his foot.

(ABC News Photo Illustration)

The 27-year-old, 7-foot-6 all-star center for the Houston Rockets was forced out of the season by a stress fracture in his left foot — specifically, a crack in the tarsal navicular bone, between the ankle joint and the middle of his foot.

Yao underwent surgery early last month when surgeons inserted a screw to stabilize the bone. Doctors involved with the surgery reported that the procedure was successful and that Yao would begin an aggressive rehabilitation program once he was up to it.

The surgery carries with it a normal downtime of four months. But it appears Yao is also looking to traditional Chinese medicine — a system that includes acupuncture and herbal remedies — to help speed his healing. On Friday, the Associated Press reported that Yao had arrived back in his home country to consult with the nation's top experts.

For the rest of the story and to read the differing opinions from medical experts click on the title of the article.

I think what is interesting here is the preliminary scientific research, the long empirical history of the use of traditional Chinese Medicine and the Western Doctor not knowing anything about it. This is a typical pattern. Plus think about this: Yao does not have anything to lose by doing TCM. He can do his rehab exercises anywhere. To spend a bit of time taking herbs, and getting acupuncture has very little downside. And of course following his own culture's medicine has the added benefit of a very strong placebo effect (not to mention home cooking). This is not to be discounted. If the normal recovery time is 4 months for his injury and he feels he can shorten that with TCM treatment, than that idea alone is very important. This is true in all human endeavors particularly medicine. It will be interesting to see in Yao's case if he is actually able to shorten his recovery time. Let's see what happens.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Studies find acupuncture cuts post-surgical pain

Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:35pm EDT

Recommend (0)

[-] Text [+]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The use of acupuncture before and during surgery reduces patients' post-operative pain as well as the need for pain-killing medication, researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina analyzed the results of 15 clinical trials on the effectiveness of acupuncture -- a practice that originated in China of inserting thin needles into specific body points.

They concluded that it is valuable for pain control in surgery patients.

The 15 trials showed that patients getting acupuncture before or during various types of operations had significantly less pain afterward than patients who did not get acupuncture.

These patients also required less morphine or other opioid pain medication after surgery, which reduced the side effects like nausea and vomiting from these types of drugs, the researchers said.

In terms of pain-drug side effects, the acupuncture patients experienced 1.5 times lower rates of nausea, 1.6 times fewer reports of dizziness and 3.5 times fewer cases of urinary retention compared to the other patients, the study found.

These findings augment a growing body of evidence on the value of acupuncture in improving the surgical experience for patients, the researchers said.

For instance, the National Institutes of Health says that acupuncture has also been shown to reduce nausea after chemotherapy and surgery.

"The use of acupuncture is still very under-appreciated," Dr. Tong-Joo Gan, vice chairman of Duke's anesthesiology department, said in a telephone interview.

"Western doctors are typically not trained (in acupuncture) and they really are not familiar with how it works," Gan said. "I think practitioners such as surgeons and anesthesiologists need to have an open mind."

He said numerous studies have looked at acupuncture to reduce post-operative pain, but many of them were not very well done. Gan said his team identified a group of well-controlled studies to judge how well acupuncture worked.

"I do it all the time," Gan said. "You give patients the acupuncture about half an hour before surgery and continue during surgery. It can reduce post-operative pain."

According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, scientists do not fully understand how acupuncture works, believing it might help the activity of the body's pain-killing chemicals or affect the regulation of blood pressure and flow.

"I think it is generally applicable to a number of different procedures," Gan said. "In the studies, we looked at abdominal procedures, orthopedic procedures, gynecological procedures."

The research was presented at a conference of the American Society for Anesthesiology in San Francisco.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Acupuncture vs. Cancer: Re-Engaging the Body's Immune System

Can acupuncture retrain the immune system and brain toward a natural and successful antagonistic approach to dangerous cell growth? Some Oriental medical doctors are now using acupuncture in new ways to help the body's immune system relearn its original "seek and destroy" mission against cancer.

One such doctor, Dr. Wang Fuda, of Greenville Research Clinic in southern Taiwan, currently sees 100-200 patients per day. Over 70 percent of his clinic patrons are cancer patients. Dr. Fuda believes that acupuncture, employed correctly, can retrain the body's immune system to defeat cancer, and correct or erase faulty body signals hospitable to cancer.

Dr. Fuda sees the needle as a homeopathic instrument. The point of the needle is actually perceived by the body as an enemy. As the needle pricks, the body musters its defenses against the invader. Fuda says the trained hand can actually feel the qi energy and body tissue resist penetration of the acupuncture needle. Applied at key points, he believes the immune system can be retrained and reactivated in some people, and this defensive action can be channeled to the site of the cancer. For the rest of the story click the link above.

For more information about Dr. Fuda click here