Has Anyone tried Accupuncture for lyme? If so, did it help?
Posted by CaliforniaLyme (Member # 7136) on :
I am of the pro-abx skeptical-of-alt-tx camp on here*)!*)! AND I think acupuncture, although not curative, is a wonderful supplemental treatment modality to abx*)!*)! It REALLY seems to help a great many people!!! I've never done it but faciitating a support group I HAVE seen it help a great many people with symtpoms- NEVER cure- but genuinely helps people!!! Around here there are a few Lyme friendly acupuncturists, too... Best wishes, Sarah
Posted by hopingandpraying (Member # 9256) on :
We did Acupuncture once a week for my teenage son. He said it helped with the pain and muscle spasms.
Unfortunately, we could not afford to continue treatment. Wish we could still.
Posted by robi (Member # 5547) on :
Yes! It helps a lot. But, it is not a quick fix. It is about balancing the body and helping it heal. Not a cure, and probably one of the best supportive therapies around.
robi
Posted by MariaA (Member # 9128) on :
Yes, it helps.
My experience:
1) When I first got sick and didnt know what it was, acupuncture helped with the diffuse pain I felt. It was this sort of surface, burning pain on my skin- acupuncturists have a Tradidional Chinese Medicine explanation for what that symptom means, and the sessions helped a lot- the pain would go away for a couple of weeks till the next session.
They also give you herbs usually and those address various imbalances that the doctor perceives. I unfortunately didn't stick with it for more than a couple of months due to going out of town.
Much of the TCM approach to medicine is really, really different than Western medicine.
It's really hard for us to comprehend and the Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine approaches and names for things aren't analagous (for instance they use terms like 'liver' and 'spleen' to describe something entirely other than the physical liver and spleen, they don't refer to the immune system, yet they do a lot of work that is exactly about bringing various immune system facets into balance).
They perceive what they call imbalances in your "energy" (but it's much less woo-woo than that) and do various interventions to bring it and other things back into a normal balance.
Along the way it tends to correct disease symptoms and is highly individualized to each individual patient. Your Lyme treatment would be very different than my Lyme treatment even though we're both infected with the same organism.
For instance, in the book I mention below, the author cites a study where a Western MD at a Chinese hospital diagnosed a group of patients with gastric ulcer (this was part of a study) and then they were treated by the TCM doctor there rather than with standard ulcer antibiotics.
The TCM doc gave diagnoses to the patients that were more variable from one person to the other- the patients fell into several kinds of categories based on their specific kinds of ulcer and other symptoms, and received very different treatment from each other based on which category or diagnosis they got. They all recovered at the same rate as would be expected from Western ulcer treatment with antibiotics.
A good book that explains the philosophy behind TCM a bit is called The Web That Has No Weaver.
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2) I had another buddy who became completely disabled at the same time as I did. It later turned out she had Lyme too. She was worse off than I was and tested negative on the various Lyme tests, and because she did acupuncture/CHinese herbs for several years, she eventually recovered enough to
a. test positive, so they could actually start treating her with antibiotics
b. hold down a 3/4 time job and part time college classes (where she did really well academically) before even treating the Lyme 'conventionally' (she'd been 100% disabled and barely able to feed herself, and certainly had massive cognitive difficulties, when she first came down with chronic Lyme)
c. had a REALLY good response to treatment once they figured out she has Lyme- it took her 6 months of antibiotics and BUhner herbs to go into total remission
d. she's now in an Ivy League university, at age 35 (which is hard even if you're healthy), doing well, right after her 6 months of antibiotics. Based on how disabled she was a few years ago I"d say that that's a major achievement for such a short course of drugs and wouldn't have been possible if she hadn't treated with acupuncture and Chinese herbs for years before her diagnosis.
[ 30. May 2007, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: MariaA ]
Posted by clairenotes (Member # 10392) on :
I was able to live a relatively normal life with undiagnosed lyme and acupuncture treatments. I was even able to practice and teach yoga.
I went to a TCM student clinic for awhile and was very pleased with the treatments received there. I followed my practitioner into his private practice after he graduated and continued with treatments off and on as he still discounted the fee to some degree. I also saw a taoist acupuncturist with good results, too.
But lyme is a complex of microbes and as such, need anti-microbial medicines or remedies, etc. Very few people, if any, are able to generate killing frequencies with needles.
Claire
Posted by klutzo (Member # 5701) on :
Acupuncture helped me immensely with my symptoms, especially those caused by my heart damage, and by the drugs used to treat it. However, the cost has forced me to discontinue. I am very sad about this. The massage/acupressure included at the end of each session was especially wonderful for me.
It was really helping my husband's pain from his work also, and he was able to cut his use of pain pills by 2/3, but for most of us, since insurance will not cover TCM, pain pills, though unhealthy, are far cheaper.
My TCM doc never claimed to cure Lyme with acupuncture alone. She planned to refer me to a homeopath she knows who was getting good results with Lyme, once she had my heart stabilized.
However, in her own life, she was cured of a recent dx of leukemia with TCM alone, after her teacher gave her treatments every day for two months straight. I think if I could afford that much acupuncture, I might get amazing results too.
Klutzo
Posted by lymeout (Member # 8045) on :
Acupuncture is wonderful. Stick to a practitioner trained in EASTERN methods. We have tried both the Western, insurance-participating type and the extensively trained Eastern and found the difference to be night and day! I'm sure there are some good Western ones, but why take the chance?
My daughter found a difference in her breathing almost immediately when doing acupuncture.
Posted by Vanilla (Member # 11155) on :
Acupuncture has really helped me with lyme symptoms. It works on body mind and spirit.
The combination of Tibetan Medicine, Tibetan herbs and a diet that my Tibetan doctor has given me for my condition (High Wind and Heat - inflammation, liver issues and digestive problems ) and Chinese acupuncture has made me hopeful when I had given up hope on getting better.
I am getting better slowly. No miracle over night cures here but improvement is improvement.
Posted by ByronSBell 2007 (Member # 11496) on :
I would say it helped me but only a hair and not for very long.... try it, see if you like it...?
Posted by katieb (Member # 11398) on :
Thank you everyone for all the great information. I found out that my insurance will pay for 30 visits a year. So I will take advantage of this and give it a try. I will post my experience, after I give it some time.
Posted by Kendrick (Member # 10990) on :
iT mAdE mE cRazY.
I had to stop because it was making me severly sick, which also leads me to believe that it is doing something and not placebo.
Maybe they opened a channel(or whatever it's called) on me, that maybe should have remained closed.
It did help with pain, which I can handle on my own anyways... (the vertigo and almost passing out, and severe fatigue is what I can't handle)
Posted by sizzled (Member # 1357) on :
I have used it to help with frostbite and a bad case of frozen shoulder.
I think it is incredibly helpful. I have seen it used in animals with AMAZING results!!
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