Acupuncture and Post Surgery Pain Release in Children

By Dr.Taya Stanley

Surgical departments in hospital discovered acupuncture since quite some time. Research is done on nausea relieve in chemotherapy patients, on pain release in adult post surgery rehabilitation as well as in tissue regeneration or in plain words: faster healing time after surgeries. In addition there is also quite some research done on decrease of post surgical complications through the administration of acupuncture in patients. That means integrated in the hospital treatment before the patient is released home or into an ambulatory setting. Now the pediatric surgical stations are starting to conduct research on post surgical pain release too.

A clinical study done by the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care of the University of San Francisco shows promising results: This non- randomized clinical trial was comprised of 20 children age 7 month to 18 years. About half of the collective underwent posterior spinal fusion surgery, the rest had miscellaneous other surgical procedures done. An astonishing short acupuncture session was planned of just 10-15 min each but high frequent administered, every 1-2 days. The results were significant and impressively positive with in addition also overwhelmingly positive feedback of the parents. Acupuncture was able to release the acute postoperative pain. Parents reported that they would be willing to continue to use acupuncture for their children as a treatment option even if they would have to pay out of pocket for it. The clinicians concluded that acupuncture may be a useful adjunctive tool for acute pediatric postoperative pain management.

Reference:

Wu S, et al. (2009) Using acupuncture for acute pain in hospitalized children. Pediatr Crit Care Med. Department of Anesthesia & Perioperative Care, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19307808