Women's Health::  Menopause •  Menstrual Irregularities




Menopause

• Can acupuncture ease the symptoms of menopause?
Acupuncture using menopausal-specific sites holds promise for non-hormonal relief of hot flushes and sleep disturbances.

• A comparison of acupuncture and oral estradiol treatment of vasomotor symptoms in postmenopausal women
We suggest that acupuncture is a viable alternative treatment of vasomotor symptoms in postmenopausal women and cannot recommend superficial needle insertion as an inactive control treatment.


Menstrual Irregularities


• Effects of electro-acupuncture on anovulation in women with polycystic ovary syndrome.
Repeated EA treatments induce regular ovulations in more than one third of the women with PCOS.

• Acupuncture for the management of primary dysmenorrhea
There was a 41% reduction of analgesic medication used by the women in the real acupuncture group after their treatment series, and no change or increased use of medication seen in the other groups.

• Effects of acupressure at the Sanyinjiao point on primary dysmenorhea.
The findings suggest that acupressure at Sanyinjiao can be an effective, cost-free intervention for reducing pain and anxiety during dysmenorrhrea, and we recommend its use for self-care of primary dysmenorrhea.

• Complementary medicine treatment of uterine fibroids: a pilot study
As reported previously in the Chinese medical literature, alternatives exist to pharmacological and surgical methods for treating uterine fibroids, though they are not inexpensive.

• Clinical studies on the mechanism for acupuncture stimulation of ovulation
Results showed that acupuncture might adjust endocrine function of the generative and physiologic axis of women, thus stimulating ovulation.

• Effect of acupuncture at Sanyinjiao (SP 6) on glucose metabolism in the patient of dysmenorrhea
Acupuncture at Sanyinjiao (SP 6) can relieve significantly the pain of the patient. Primary dysmenorrhea is cured mainly by activating the area involved in pain. It is indicated that acupuncture can relieve pain and balancing the pain-related central networks. Also the neuroendocrine system may play a role in the therapy.

 
Note: It is our professional opinion and that of most of our field, that the evaluation of eastern therapies with western research methodology is not representative of the true practice of the medicine and thus is destined to only reveal partial truths. Most of the current research looks at one therapy (i.e. one acupuncture point or one set of acupuncture points) applied to every patient in a study group representing the condition in question. This is like asking a carpenter to build a house with only a hammer. The only way to truly evaluate the efficacy of our medicine is to allow the therapies to be customized to fit the patient’s unique presentation; the way eastern medicine has been practiced for thousands of years.