Xie's articular needling is handed down from the older generations of the family of Mr. XIE Jiguang, which is approved to have extensive indications and capable to treat various pain syndromes and Bi syndromes. Articular needling is a technique of puncturing the area at the junction of the joints, tendons and muscles. Local points and distal points are often combined in the application. The four pain-relieving points are held as distal points in articular needling, which refers to Sanjian (LI 3), Houxi (SI 3), Taibai (SP 3) and Shugu (BL 65). If pain occurs at one side of the body, the four points are supposed to be selected on the opposite side the affected area. While if pain occurs on both sides or for chronic cases, all the 8 points on both sides should be applied. For treatment of local and chronic pain, local points must be combined. Reinforcing manipulations with superficial insertion should be applied for deficient syndrome at the healthy side in most of the situations. Moreover, points around the umbilicus should be selected for tonifying the primary qi.
Acupuncture Analgesia ; methods ; Acupuncture Points ; Humans ; Joints

Acupuncture Analgesia ; methods ; Acupuncture Points ; Humans

Acupuncture, a therapeutic treatment defined as the insertion of needles into the body at specific points (ie, acupoints), has growing in popularity world-wide to treat various diseases effectively, especially acute and chronic pain. In parallel, interest in the physiological mechanisms underlying acupuncture analgesia, particularly the neural mechanisms have been increasing. Over the past decades, our understanding of how the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system process signals induced by acupuncture has developed rapidly by using electrophysiological methods. However, with the development of neuroscience, electrophysiology is being challenged by calcium imaging in view field, neuron population and visualization in vivo. Owing to the outstanding spatial resolution, the novel imaging approaches provide opportunities to enrich our knowledge about the neurophysiological mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia at subcellular, cellular, and circuit levels in combination with new labeling, genetic and circuit tracing techniques. Therefore, this review will introduce the principle and the method of calcium imaging applied to acupuncture research. We will also review the current findings in pain research using calcium imaging from in vitro to in vivo experiments and discuss the potential methodological considerations in studying acupuncture analgesia.
Calcium ; Acupuncture Therapy ; Acupuncture ; Acupuncture Analgesia/methods* ; Acupuncture Points ; Technology

OBJECTIVE: To confirm that acupuncture applied to patients would improve the clinical curative effect and accelerate the patient's recovery by introducing the application of acupuncture in pre-operation, during operation, and post-operation. DATA SOURCES: Literature cited in this review was retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and was primarily published in English or Chinese from 2010 to 2018, with keywords of "acupuncture," "electroacupuncture," "perioperative period," "sedation," "analgesia," and "recovery." Relevant citations in the retrieved articles were also screened to include more data. STUDY SELECTION: All retrieved literature was scrutinized, most typical articles related on perioperative acupuncture application in clinical study were reviewed. RESULTS: Acupuncture could relieve anxiety and stress during the preoperative stage. It reduces the usage of narcotics and stress response, and maintains the respiratory stability and homeostasis during surgery. It also exerts a protective effect on vital organs, and during the postoperative stages, enhances the recovery while effectively alleviating the postoperative pain. This phenomenon prevents common postoperative discomforts such as nausea and vomiting. In addition, it might improve the patients' long-term prognosis. CONCLUSIONS The novel concept "perioperative acupuncture medicine" is to focus on the optimal treatment in the perioperative period of surgical patients. The review reveals the important role of acupuncture in enhancing rapid recovery of patients during the perioperative period.
Acupuncture Analgesia ; methods ; Acupuncture Therapy ; methods ; Humans ; Perioperative Period

To introduce the clinical experience and theories of spondylopathy treated with Points Jiaji (EX-B 2), intractable pain and numbness of limbs treated with acupoints of yin meridians, disorders of lumbar vertebra with combination of acupoints in abdomen and lumbar region and muscular injury of joints by acupuncture Kinesitherapy.
Acupuncture Analgesia ; Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; methods ; Humans ; Hypesthesia ; therapy ; Muscular Diseases ; therapy ; Spinal Diseases ; therapy

Prof. WU Lian-zhong not only has great theoretical attainments and rich clinical experience, but also is good at summarization and study, especially, systematically and deep study on various kinds of pain from etiology, pathogenesis, characteristics, classification and syndrome differentiation, treatment method and point selection and other aspects, and sums up the 12 treatment methods such as regulating mental activities, removing obstruction in the channels, opposing needling, blood-letting puncture, sixteen cleft points, warming the channels, resistant needling, Su needling, surrounding needling, tripod needling, penetration needling and dragon-tiger contending method, which are of very important significance for guiding clinical acupuncture analgesia.
Acupuncture Analgesia ; methods ; Adult ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged

Fu's subcutaneous needling (FSN) is a modern approach developed from traditional Chinese acupuncture. It could give some stimulation in the subcutaneous region that has a quick and long-lasting effect on soft tissue injuries and some of the internal medicine diseases. It is a safe approach without adverse reaction. Through analysis of the features and possible mechanism of FSN, it is believed that research on mechanism of FSN is beneficial to the development of modern medicine, especially to pain management.
Acupuncture Analgesia ; instrumentation ; methods ; Acupuncture Points ; Humans ; Pain Management ; instrumentation ; methods

Literatures on acupuncture analgesia of the recent 30 years are analyzed through the target pain syndromes, points and tools selected for needling as well as the chosen direction, angle and depth of insertion. The relationship between effect of acupuncture analgesia and needling direction, angle as well as depth is initially optimized to enhance the analgesic effect. The result shows that the 3 factors are the key influences. However, studies on the above mentioned relation are still far from enough. Aiming at enhancing the effect of acupuncture analgesia and exploring the relative mechanism, it is held that multivariate analysis should be adopted to do systematic analysis on relationship between effect and mechanism of acupuncture analgesia and direction, angle and depth of the needle insertion.
Acupuncture Analgesia ; instrumentation ; methods ; Acupuncture Therapy ; instrumentation ; methods ; Animals ; Humans ; Needles

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture analgesia in reducing patient's discomfort during colonoscopy.

METHODSEighty outpatients scheduled to undergo colonoscopy were randomly divided into an electroacupuncture (EA) group and a control group, 40 cases in each group. The patients in the EA group received electroacupuncture analgesia at the right Zusanli (ST 36) and Shangjuxu (ST 37), and left Yinlingquan (SP 9) and Sanyinjiao (SP 6), and bilateral Hegu (LI 4) from 30 minutes before colonoscopy to the end of colonoscopy. And the control group did not receive any treatment. Blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) in the both groups were continuously monitored during colonoscopy; the pain degrees during colonoscope inserting and passing the sigmoid, splenic flexure and hepatic flexure were observed. The time to reach cecum, adverse reaction and patient's satisfactoriness were recorded.

RESULTSColonoscopy was well tolerated in all the 80 patients. Pain degrees during colonoscope inserting and passing the sigmoid and splenic flexure in the EA group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.01); the time to reach cecum in the EA group (9.58 +/- 3.386) min was significantly shorter than that in the control group (12.96 +/- 6.4) min (P < 0.05); patient's satisfactoriness in the EA group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in HR and BP values between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONAcupuncture analgesia can effectively alleviate the discomfort of patients during colonoscopic examination, shorten the duration of colonoscopy, with a higher satisfactoriness of the patient.

Acupuncture Analgesia ; methods ; Acupuncture Points ; Adult ; Colonoscopy ; methods ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged

OBJECTIVETo observe the analgesic effect and safety of acupuncture-anesthetic composite anesthesia (AACA) in hysteroscopic surgery.

METHODSTotally 93 patients undergoing hysteroscopic surgery were randomly assigned to the intravenous anesthesia group (A group, 30 cases), the AACA group (B group, 32 cases), and the acupuncture combined with intravenous anesthesia group (C group, 31 cases). Patients in Group A were anesthetized by sufentanil combined propofol. Those in Group B were anesthetized by sufentanil combined acupuncture. Those in Group C were anesthetized by sufentanil, propofol combined acupuncture. Yinlian and Ququan (LR8) were needled for patients in Group B and C. The peri-operative mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), and oxygen saturation (SpO2), the surgical time, the recovery time, the sufentanil and propofol dosages, adverse anesthesia reactions were observed. Meanwhile, the OAA/S score, Ramsay sedation score, and Visual Analogue Score (VAS) were also measured.

RESULTSCompared with Group A and C, patients in Group B were awake, with obvious increased OAA/S score (P < 0.01). Ramsay sedation score was significantly lower (P < 0.01).The MAP and HR were elevated (P < 0.05). The patient case of SpO2 less than 85% during the operation decreased (P < 0.05). The incidence of postoperative dizziness was reduced (P < 0.05). Compared with Group A, the propofol consumption decreased in Group C (P < 0.05). There was no statistical difference in the operation time, the sufentanil dosage, VAS score, the incidence of postoperative nause- a and vomiting among the three groups (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSThe patients were awake in AACA. The intraoperative sedation was better than that obtained by intravenous anesthesia. But the analgesic effect was similar to that obtained by intravenous anesthesia.

Acupuncture Analgesia ; Adult ; Analgesia ; methods ; Anesthesia, Intravenous ; Female ; Humans ; Hysteroscopy ; Young Adult