Acupuncture therapies vary, and that's OK, says study
　　THURSDAY, May 17 (HealthScoutNews) -- If you want an acupuncturist to treat that pain in your back, don't expect one standard way to balance your "chi." There may be as many ways to treat the pain as there are acupuncturists, a new study shows.

But the variety is OK, say mainstream doctors. The nature of acupuncture is for treatments to vary.

The idea behind acupuncture is to improve the flow energy, called chi, through the body. Practioners insert slender needles at certain points in the body to release stopped-up energy.

"We are not criticizing acupuncture therapy by any means," says lead study author Dr. Donna Kalauokalani, assistant professor of anesthesiology, internal medicine and psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. "Our aim in this paper was to inform medical doctors of what is really involved in acupuncture treatment in order that physicians can advise their patients on whether alternative low back pain treatments should be considered."

Kalauokalani and her colleagues asked seven acupuncturists practicing traditional Chinese medicine to evaluate and treat a single patient with chronic low back pain. "There was high diagnostic agreement among five of the seven acupuncturists, but treatment recommendations varied between five and 14 acupuncture points requiring seven to 28 needles," Kalauokalani says. Of the 28 acupuncture points selected, only four were prescribed by two or more acupuncturists. Most of the acupuncturists, however, recommended various forms of heat treatment.

　　From HealthScout News