Patients have heard me advise against caffeine for a variety of reasons, such as it alters their pulse which can diminish treatment accuracy. Now we have a physiological explanation as to how caffeine interferes with the biological mechanisms and efficacy of acupuncture! It's best to cut out caffeine altogether but barring that, try to avoid it 48hrs before and at least 24hrs after an acupuncture treatment for optimal results.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03542-x
Across the country, doctors are striving to avoid prescribing medication, particularly opioids, for chronic pain. Research shows acupuncture to be a cost-effective way to treat pain with very little risk for the patient.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/2017/07/knee-arthritis-got-you-down-acupuncture-can-bring-relief/
A systematic review just published in the BMJ's Acupuncture in Medicine found that acupuncture helps patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, reducing symptoms, relapse and improving quality of life.
http://aim.bmj.com/content/early/2017/07/07/acupmed-2016-011205
"Our pilot study found that using manual stimulation of the needles, rather than an electrical pulse, commonly used in many Chinese studies for period pain, resulted in reduced need for pain-relieving medication and improvement in secondary symptoms such as headaches and nausea," said Dr Mike Armour, a postdoctoral research fellow at Western Sydney University's National Institute of Complementary Medicine.
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/acupuncture-punctures-period-pain-study-214932539--spt.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb
The doctor who coined RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) has since retracted this decades old advice on sports medicine and admitted that the research into tissue healing does not support his prior recommendations. Chinese medicine has been saying it forever, "ice is for dead people". Why then does mainstream medicine still rely on this approach? It's so deeply engrained into the medical community and yet it often makes people worse, especially long term.
http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/why-ice-delays-recovery.html
The analysis suggests that the complementary use of acupuncture for craniotomy has additional analgesic effects, reduces the needed amount of volatile anesthetic, reduces the onset of postoperative nausea and vomiting, and might have protective effects on brain tissue. Our findings may stimulate future randomized controlled trials to provide definitive recommendations.
http://journals.lww.com/jnsa/Abstract/publishahead/Effects_of_Acupuncture_in_Anesthesia_for.99416.aspx
A combined acupuncture–medicine anesthesia strategy reduces the postoperative morbidity and medical costs in patients undergoing open heart surgery under cardiopulmonary bypass.
http://www.internationaljournalofcardiology.com/article/S0167-5273%2811%2900349-4/pdf
