Effect of “Tongji” electroacupuncture on pain and inflammatory factors in patients with lumbar disc herniation in remission stage
Journal Title: TMR Non-Drug Therapy - Year 2020, Vol 3, Issue 4
Abstract
Abstract Background: Lumbar disc herniation is the most common back pain disorder characterized by lumbago-leg pain in clinical practice. The treatment of lumbar disc herniation in Western medicine mainly contains the operative or non-operative interventions (nerve block therapy, etc.) to relieve pain. Although the pain relief is fast and the short-term effect is clear, it often ignores the degeneration of intervertebral disc, resulting in recurrent symptoms, prolonged course of treatment, and easy to cause sequelae such as lumbar instability. Acupuncture has been used for a long time in the clinical treatment of lumbago-leg pain with definite and long-lasting effect. Methods: 116 cases of lumbar disc herniation were randomly divided into treatment group (n = 59) and control group (n = 57). The control group was treated with oral analgesics, and the observation group was treated with “Tongji” electro-acupuncture (the acupoints were selected at 1.3 inch away from the midline after level T12 (the 12th thoracic vertebra), L1 (the 1st lumbar vertebra), L2 (the 2nd lumbar vertebra), L3 (the 3rd lumbar vertebra), L4 (the 4th lumbar vertebra), L5 (the 5th lumbar vertebra) and S1 (the 1st sacral vertebra), the left and right sides are symmetrical) plus oral analgesics. Visual analog scale score and Japanese Orthopaedic Association score were evaluated before treatment and 5 days, 10 days and 1 month after treatment, respectively. The contents of interleukin-6 and substance P in peripheral serum were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method, and the total clinical effective rate was calculated. Results: Both the pain visual analog scale score and Japanese Orthopaedic Association score in the treatment group and the control group after treatment were improved as compared with those before treatment (P < 0.05). There were also significant differences in these two scores between the treatment group and the control group (P < 0.05). Furthermore, there was no significant difference between 1 month and 10 days after treatment (P > 0.05), indicating the long-term effect of “Tongji” electroacupuncture on improving lumbago-leg pain was significant. After treatment, the contents of interleukin-6 and substance P in both the control group and the treatment group were lower than those before treatment, and there was significant difference between the control group and the treatment group (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01 respectively). The total effective rate after treatment was 94.92%, which was higher than that of 87.72% in the control group (P < 0.01). Conclusion: The intervention of “Tongji” electroacupuncture plus the routine oral analgesic can significantly improve the lumbar function of patients with lumbar disc herniation, alleviate the pain and improve the clinical symptoms of lumbar disc herniation via decreasing the production of inflammatory factors interleukin-6 and substance P, suggesting a better curative effect than oral analgesic alone.
Authors and Affiliations
Chao Liang1*, Cai-Yu Peng1 ,Tao Jiang1 ,hao-Ping Chen1 ,Yan-Zhen Zhang1 ,Meng-Rui Zhang1
Keywords
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- EP ID EP690465
- DOI 10.12032/TMRND20201105022
- Views 188
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