Managing Menstrual Pain with Acupuncture
June 23, 2008 – 3:19 pm
Maybe it starts with a headache or you feel more clumsy than usual or, curiously, the world is suddenly full of jerks. You know what’s coming as you wait for the cramps to arrive like the jaws of death around your waist.
Technically, it’s called dysmenorrhea or the medical condition characterized by severe uterine pain during menstruation. A recent German study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology demonstrated acupuncture could reduce menstrual pain and improve the quality of life for some women.
201 women were enrolled in the study and randomly assigned to receive acupuncture in addition to traditional medical treatment. After 3 months and an average of 10 sessions, the pain index for the group who received acupuncture was significantly lower than the control group [ 3.1 to 5.4 on a scale of 1-10, 10 being highest degree of pain ].
The conclusion of the study was that the use of acupuncture in patients with dysmenorrhea was associated with improvements in pain and quality of life as compared to usual care alone and was cost effective with usual thresholds.
Read the full article at the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology
One Response to “Managing Menstrual Pain with Acupuncture”
You hear a lot about acupuncture being able to help with cramps. I’m surprised nobody ever did a study about it before. I was searching around on this and I found another blog that has some good information, too:
http://acupuncturetwincities.com/?p=22
By natoli on Jun 24, 2008