What is neuropathic pain?

Pain relief and speed healing with acupuncture

At Starting Point Acupuncture in Bothell, we specialize in complex and chronic conditions, peripheral neuropathic pain is one of them. Call our office today, (425) 686-4498 to set-up your initial consultation to learn how we can help your specific concerns.

What is neuropathic pain?

Neuropathic pain is quite common and is caused by nerve damage. This nerve damage can be triggered by diabetes, post-herpetic neuralgia “shingles,” post-stroke complications, or idiopathic “unknown cause.”

People often describe the pain as severe, typically burning, tingling, sometimes sharp or stabbing pains. The pain can be constant or come and go and is typically worse at night.

How is neuropathic pain treated?

Commonly patients are placed on pain reducing or blocking medications such as Gabapentin and prescribed physical therapy. However, often patients continue to experience pain and decrease in quality of life after being on standard treatments and seek alternatives to help manage the pain. We see patients then are prescribed anti-depressants to help with the depression that comes with chronic pain and soon after a patient is now on several different medications and still not getting relief. The issue is the root cause is not being addressed by their doctor, they are just being placed on medications to mask the pain.

Neuropathic pain involves damage to nerves or poor circulation. So, improving nerve function, decreasing inflammation, support healing, and increase circulation should be the goals of the treatment. Acupuncture has been shown to do all of that.

This is often a common scenario that comes to our clinic.

“I have been on medication for years and continue to have pain, this is my last resort.”

Acupuncture can help neuropathic pain!

What do the studies say?

In a recent study looking at if acupuncture can provide a safe and effective treatment option for chronic neuropathic pain found very interesting results.

The study involved several groups of people who had diagnosis of chronic peripheral neuropathic pain. The study compared a group receiving acupuncture, acupuncture vs. sham acupuncture, acupuncture vs active therapies, and a group who received acupuncture and combined active therapies. Active therapies were exercise prescriptions or drug therapy. The group that received acupuncture for 8 weeks or more during the study showed that acupuncture offered a safe and effective treatment for pain relief. Do note that more and more research is coming out on acupuncture, as it is difficult to study in a double-blind placebo based research model.

But the initial results show, what acupuncturists already know…acupuncture works!