Health Brief

ACUPUNCTURE PROVIDES WELCOME RELIEF TO NERVE PAIN

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After twenty years of suffering from trigeminal neuralgia, a neurological disease that inflames a central nerve in her face so that it feels like "a vise grip in your face that keeps turning and won't let go," Daryl Files found a simple, drugless solution: Acupuncture.

"I've been to neurologists and pain management people," Files said. "I've had nerve blocks. I've been on every medication combination (doctors) could think of."Then, on the advice of one of her daughters, she visited Jian Shu, an acupuncturist wio was trained in traditional Chinese medicine in Beijing. Finally, said File , after a few months of having slender needles only as wide as a whisk r inserted in her face, her hands and along her back, she found relief.

Many people make their first visit to an acupuncturist for the same reasons Files did: they've received treatment for their ailments from Western doctors to no avail. Shu agrees; many of her patients come to her, frustrated, as a "last resort." By that time, their pain may be years old and may need several visits to remedy.

"Traditional (Western) doctors use a Band-Aid effect," Files said. "They treat the pain, they don't get to the root of it. When I went to Dr. Shu, I told her what I had, she researched it and started doing different treatments related to the different nerve paths."

Shu said inserting the needles is only one step of the treatment. Once they're in deep enough to connect with the body's energy pathway, they are stimulated by manual twisting, or application of electric currents or infrared heat. "This stimulates the emotions in the body, which stimulates the brain and that stimulates a hormone called endorphins," she said, which help the body rebalance itself.

Evidence shows that the rebalancing effect was just what Daryl Files needed to overcome her constant pain.

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SOURCE: http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/entertainment
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