Posted in Acupuncture in USA, Dr.Fan's publications, Low Back Pain-Leg Pain, tagged Acupuncture, Chronic Low back pain, discussion, expert, Low back pain, older adults, real-world, senior on March 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Our new article has been just published. https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1YjvU7STV7irBO
Citation: Fan AY, Ouyang H, Qian X, Wei H, Wang DD, He D, Tian H, Gong C, Matecki A,Alemi SF. Discussions on real-world acupuncture treatments for chronic low-back pain in older adults.J Integr Med.2019; 17(2): 71–76.
Posted in acupuncture clinical trial, acupuncture study, OB / GYN, Uncategorized, Vulvodynia, women health, tagged Acupuncture, acupuncture for vulvodynia, chronic pain, Trial, Vulvodynia on November 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Our clinical trial protocol has been published recently in Journal of Integrative Medicine, the PDF of whole article is available based on request.
Fan AY, Alemi SF, Zhu YH, Rahimi S, Wei H, Tian H, He D, Gong C, Yang G, He C, Ouyang H. J Integr Med. 2018 Oct 10. pii: S2095-4964(18)30103-1. doi: 10.1016/j.joim.2018.10.004. [Epub ahead of print]
Vulvodynia, or vulvar pain, is a common condition in women; however, there are few evidence-based clinical trials evaluating nonpharmacological therapies for this condition. Acupuncture is one complementary and integrative medicine therapy used by some patients with vulvodynia. This study evaluates two different acupuncture strategies for the treatment of vulvodynia and aims to evaluate whether either of the acupuncture protocols reduces vulvar pain, pain duration or pain with intercourse. The study also examines how long the effect of acupuncture lasts in women with vulvodynia.
The study is designed as a randomized controlled trial, focused on two acupuncture protocols. Fifty-one patients who have had vulvodynia for more than 3 months will be recruited. Among them, 34 patients will be randomized into Groups 1a and 1b; those who are unwilling to receive acupuncture will be recruited into the standard care group (Group 2). Patients in Group 1a will have acupuncture focused on the points in the pudendal nerve distribution area, while patients in Group 1b will receive acupuncture focused on traditional (distal) meridian points. Patients in Group 2 will receive routine conventional treatments, such as using pain medications, local injections and physical therapies or other nonsurgical procedures. Acupuncture will last 45 min per session, once or twice a week for 6 weeks. The primary outcome measurement will be objective pain intensity, using the cotton swab test. The secondary outcome measurement will be subjective patient self-reported pain intensity, which will be conducted before cotton swab test. Pain intensities will be measured by an 11-point Numeric Pain Rating Scale. Pain duration and pain score during intercourse are recorded. Local muscle tension, tenderness and trigger points (Ashi points) are also recorded. All measurements will be recorded at baseline (before the treatment), at the end of each week during treatment and at the end of the 6 weeks. Follow-up will be done 6 weeks following the last treatment.
Results of this trial will provide preliminary data on whether acupuncture provides better outcomes than nonacupuncture treatments, i.e., standard care, and whether acupuncture focused on the points in pudendal nerve distribution, near the pain area, has better results than traditional acupuncture focused on distal meridian points for vulvodynia.
Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT03481621. Register: March 29, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Shanghai Changhai Hospital. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Posted in ALS and Other MNDs, Uncategorized, tagged Acupuncture, ALS, oxygen level on May 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »
We have a ALS patient, his respiration has some difficulties and has to use oxygen all the time, normally he needs the level 3 (see picture below). One day, during a 2 hours’ acupuncture treatment, we found his oxygen level was 95-97 (see below) and very stable although his helpers accidentally forgot to turn the oxygen on-they saw the monitor showed normal all the time during this 2 hours and thought he was in inhaling the oxygen. I took the pictures and record here. These pictures are the evidence-acupuncture helps patient have a good air exchange, and let the oxygen keep at a normal level.
Posted in Allergy, Asthma, cancer, Knee pain, Uncategorized, tagged Pediatric acupuncture on March 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Many people called me and asked me -did you treat a pediatric patient?
Yes. I have 8% patients actually babies and kids.
The conditions include in: ADD, OCD, premature baby, coughing, asthma, allergies, GI issues, and various pain conditions, and concussion, migraine, seizure…… also help cancer kids during the chemotherapies.
Posted in fertility, Infertility, Uncategorized, tagged Acupuncture, acupuncture baby, infertility, Try to Conceive on September 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Some friends called us, inquiring the acupuncture in helping their infertility.
I told them, from late 2007-mid 2014(7 years), we had more than 145 “acupuncture”babies i.e. our acupuncture helped about 20 infertility friends each year to get baby. After that, we did not continue the statistic work. I don’t have very accurate data to calculate how much the successful rate, because some friends forgot to give back their pregnancy information.
Here is a story:
Yesterday, a lady came back to see me due to the stomach stuffy and gas issue since her had second pregnancy about one and half year ago. When we reviewing her illness history, she was very excited and told me she is very happy with our treatments–three years ago she had ten sessions’ acupuncture and got her first baby; after a year, she came and had five sessions’acupuncture, then got the second baby!
Actually, she is not the only one who got two babies after our treatments.
Posted in acupuncture clinical trial, acupuncture study, australian acupuncture trial, Hot Flash, OB / GYN, women health on April 21, 2016| 1 Comment »
In their recent report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Ee et al1 state that Chinese medical acupuncture was no better than non-insertive sham acupuncture for women with moderately severe menopausal hot flashes in a randomised controlled trial. The authors conclude that they “cannot recommend skin-penetrating acupuncture as an efficacious treatment of this indication”.1 In my opinion, the authors might have misinterpreted the results.
The ‘sham acupuncture’ used in this clinical trial was the Park sham device, which is supposed to serve as a placebo treatment. It uses a 0.35×40 mm blunt needle supported by a plastic ring and guide tube (base unit) attached to the skin with a double-sided adhesive ring. The needle telescopes into itself and shortens on manipulation, giving the visual and physical impression of insertion into the skin.1 Although the blunt needle does not insert into the skin, it does cause considerable pressure and thereby mechanical stimulation, especially given the small diameter at its tip. This Park sham device should arguably be relabelled as an acupressure device, instead of a form of sham acupuncture treatment. Indeed, this type of device and needling method is historically recognised as an active form of treatment; it is otherwise known as a Di needle (鍉针 or Di Zhen, a style of pressing needle that does not penetrate the skin), as documented in The Spiritual Pivot: Nine Needles and Twelve Source Points (Ling Shu: Jiu Zhen Shi Er Yuan) in the second part of the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classics, which was published 2000 years ago.2 For this reason, the trial design contained an obvious weakness; it compared acupuncture with acupressure, rather than acupuncture with truly inert sham acupuncture.
According to the trial’s results, hot flash scores decreased after both interventions by about 40% between baseline and the end of treatment (10 sessions, ending after 8 weeks) and these effects were sustained for 6 months. Statistically, there is no evidence that acupuncture was better than acupressure (called ‘sham acupuncture’ in the paper) in its impact on quality of life, anxiety or depression.1 This can equally be interpreted as evidence that both acupuncture and acupressure effectively decrease hot flashes and related symptoms, as well as quality of life, if we compare the results immediately after treatment (8 weeks) and at the 3- and 6-month follow-up, with baseline in the same group (self-control) or comparator group (as a waiting list-like control).
As regards the placebo effect, evidence from the literature3 and a review of multiple trials4 shows that patients receiving placebo interventions exhibit an average decrease of 21–25% in hot flash frequency and intensity. Therefore, a 40% decrease in hot flash symptom scores with either acupuncture or acupressure treatment is notably higher than that expected with a placebo and likely to be clinically significant. Further research with a more appropriate control group is needed. Meanwhile, however, if a patient declines or cannot tolerate conventional drug treatment, then it would not be unreasonable to offer either acupuncture or acupressure as an alternative treatment for this condition.
References 1. Ee C, Xue C, Chondros P, et al. Acupuncture for menopausal hot flashes: a randomized trial. Ann Intern Med 2016;164:146–54. doi:10.7326/M15-1380 [Medline] 2. Wu JN (translator). Ling Shu or The Spiritual Pivot. University of Hawaii Press, 2002. 3. Loprinzi CL, Michalak JC, Quella SK, et al. Megestrol acetate for the prevention of hot flashes. N Engl J Med 1994;331:347–52. doi:10.1056/NEJM199408113310602 [CrossRef][Medline][Web of Science] 4. Sloan JA, Loprinzi CL, Novotny PJ, et al. Methodologic lessons learned from hot flash studies. J Clin Oncol 2001;19:4280–90. [Abstract/FREE Full text]
Fan AY. Trial suggests both acupuncture and acupressure are effective at reducing menopausal hot flashes. Acupunct Med doi:10.1136/acupmed-2016-011119.
http://aim.bmj.com/content/early/2016/04/19/acupmed-2016-011119.full
Posted in Acid reflux, laryngomalacia, respiration difficulty, tagged Acupuncture, infant, laryngomalacia on October 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Laryngomalacia (literally, “soft larynx“) is the most common cause of stridor in infancy, in which the soft, immature cartilage of the upper larynx collapses inward during inhalation, causing airway obstruction. It can also be seen in older patients, especially those with neuromuscular conditions resulting in weakness of the muscles of the throat. However, the infantile form is much more common. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laryngomalacia)
In recent years, we have treated three cases of this condition.
One A Z. female, 8 weeks old.Mom found her has difficult respiration since born, when inhaling the air, the baby has “ca”, “”ca” sound. The flexible laryngoscopy found she has laryngomalacia. Physician suggested baby to use Zantac, Omeprozole, and mylanta (block the acid reflux). We used acupuncture to adjust the lung and stomach meridian function. After three sessions, the respiration difficulty stopped. Then the baby had 30 additional acupuncture, everything became normal.
Another O V. male, 5 weeks old. same condition as above, after 2 sessions acupuncture, the respiration difficulty disappeared. Total had 14 treatments.
Posted in OB / GYN, women health, tagged Acupuncture, acupuncture labor induction, induce labor, labor induction, over due, pregnancy on October 24, 2013| 3 Comments »
Today a patient called me–She said she labored this morning and gets a baby girl after our 2 session acupuncture treatments.
Her labor was over-due at 42 weeks and 2 days pregnancy, her OB doctor suggested her using medication to induce the labor. But she liked to try acupuncture first. It was worked! She got two days’ treatments in our center for “acupuncture labor induction”.
However, another patient (with 40 weeks pregnancy) got two acupuncture treatments during this week in our center, she did not start the labor yet, only got more intermittent cramping, she did not resume our acupuncture treatment. She said she likes to wait and see what will happen.
Acupuncture does help some of the patients whose labor is over-due. Based on our experience, two to three session acupuncture is needed–once a day, each for 45 to 60 minutes. We had 7 cases for “acupuncture labor induction”– 4 were successful, 2 were not (did not have enough cramping with 36 hours after the second acupuncture treatment) , one stopped only after one acupuncture(too hurry to start the medication).
I find there are more and more needs in natural way to accelerate/ induce the labor. Some video are online:
For more information is at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19922252
Division of Chinese Medicine, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Bundoora Campus, Victoria, Australia celim@unswalumni.com
The objective of this study is to review the existing scientific evidence on the potential role of acupuncture on induction of labor during pregnancy.
The Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, AMED (Allied and Complementary Medicine), and NCCAM (The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) databases were searched to identify relevant monographs from 1970 to 2008.
These criteria included all available human acupuncture studies on pregnant women carrying a viable fetus due for third trimester induction of labor.
These criteria included studies not meeting the inclusion criteria, in languages other than English, or animal studies.
Ten (10) studies on labor induction were identified. The duration of labor as a result of acupuncture treatment ranged from 10 hours 20 minutes to 29.1 hours. All of the studies demonstrated labor induction by acupuncture treatment. However, because two randomized controlled trials reported that there was no statistically significant effect of acupuncture, these results are more suggestive than definitive. Furthermore, although the relationship between cervical ripening and interleukin-8 (IL-8), prostaglandin F(2alpha) (PGF(2alpha)), and beta-endorphin is well documented in the literature, there is no evidence to suggest that acupuncture alters these mediators. Serum levels of IL8, beta-endorphin, and PGF(2alpha) were not found to be significantly influenced by acupuncture.
Although the definitive role of acupuncture in inducing labor is still yet to be established, the existing studies suggest that acupuncture may be beneficial in labor induction. Further randomized clinical trials are needed to investigate this further.
Posted in Acupuncture in USA, OB / GYN, urination difficult, Urological illness, women health, tagged Acupuncture, catheter, rectum prolapse, urination difficult, uterus prolapse on September 5, 2013| 1 Comment »
Recently, a patient came to see me for urination difficult, the former doctors’ diagnosis was “neurological bladder”(which means the patient is too nervous to urine).
After a detail inquiring and examination, the urination difficult actually is secondary to the uterus and rectum prolapse. She had three natural labors before, and had weakness of pelvic bottom. She had to use the catheter to drain the urine out of bladder in most of time, esp. before the sleep.
Dr.Fan suggested her to consult other related specialists to see if this need an operation. Patient was very hesitate to do the operation. Anyway, she still booked appointments with ob/gyn surgeon and rectum surgeon.
So, during the gap to see other doctors, we started acupuncture, twice a week. To our surprise, the result of acupuncture is very impressive–after three or four acupuncture, her urination is much much easier, and almost does not need the catheter.
Posted in fertility, Headache, Hypertension, Neurology, OB / GYN, Testimonies or Records, women health, tagged Acupuncture, alexandria, annandale, arlington, falls church, fertility, herndon, hypertension, Maryland, mclean, migraine, migraine during pregnancy, reston, Rockville, tysons corner, vienna, Virginia, washington DC on October 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Acupuncture helped the mother overcome the migraine and hypertension during pregnancy
Posted in Dizziness, Hearing loss, Testimonies or Records, tagged Acupuncture, alexandria, arlington, dizziness, falls church, hearing loss, herndon, Maryland, mclean, Potomac, reston, Rockville, stroke, vienna, Virginia, washington DC on September 21, 2012| 1 Comment »
Mr. D. N.,80 years old, had a stroke in last November (year 2011), the stroke affected function of his celebellum and stem. The main problem is dizziness and hearing loss. He had ten acupuncture treatments and’several months physical therapies, did not feel significant improvement.
On August 21,2012, patient started to see me. When he came, he was very dizzy, even the position change, such as lying down and/or sitting up, causing severe dizziness. He had to use a cane to help the balance, his daughter or son helps his walk too. For his hearing loss, he said he could answer the phone only when the speaker is on; he could not hear the door-bell ringing and the touch-tone sound of the phone.
After our 4 acupuncture treatments, his dizziness decreased at least 50% and walking much better, faster and balance better,don’t need other to help him; and hearing better.
After 6 treatments, he could hear the door-bell ringing and touch-tone sound of the phone. Very happy and said at least 50% improving. Currently, he is still under extensive acupuncture treatments in our office.
Posted in Low Back Pain-Leg Pain, Testimonies or Records, tagged Acupuncture, alexandria, annandale, arlington, Arthur Fan, back pain, falls church, herndon, lower pack pain, Maryland, mclean, northern virginia, reston, Rockville, vienna, Virginia, washington DC on September 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Restless Leg Syndrome, Testimonies or Records, tagged Acupuncture, alexandria, annandale, anxiety, arlington, falls church, headache, herndon, Maryland, mclean, migraine, northern virginia, Restless Leg Syndrome, reston, RLS, Rockville, vienna, Virginia, washington DC on September 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
September 6, 2012
Doctor Fan,
I want to thank you for using your expert acupuncture techniques to solve my long lasting Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS).
Traditional medicine did not work and your remedies have allowed me to sleep well at night.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
P. A.
Dr.Arthur fan notes: after acupuncture, patient feels no longer have restless leg syndrome, and migraine gone, sleep very soundly.
And, very important the mood much calm.
Posted in fertility, Infertility, OB / GYN, women health, tagged Acupuncture, alexandria, annandale, arlington, Arthur Fan, Chinese Medicine, falls church, fertility, herb, infertility, Maryland, northern virginia, reston, Rockville, Try to Conceive, TTC, vienna, Virginia, washington DC on September 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »
This morning, a lady reported her pregnancy test strong positive–got pregnant. This is no.65 patient got pregnant, since 2007, by our acupuncture treatments.
She is 33 years old, married for 6 years, and tried seriously to get conceive for over one years. According to her, her husband is healthy and the sperm test was good. She also has a lot acne, so she hope we could adjust her hormones for both acne and fertility.
When she first saw me, she was in day 14 of her period cycle (she had 28-days-cycles before). I gave her acupuncture according to our protocol, and herb pills. after 8 sessions acupuncture, she felt her cervical mucus is slippery and very stretchable, better than before. after another two weeks, her period didn’t come. Then her pregnancy test became positive.
Virginia Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine 