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acupuncture causing nerve pain/damage?
Hello,
I've been getting acupuncture to treat my lower back pain. At my last treatment the doctor placed a needles at several locations on my legs and back.
The needle behind my right knee caused pain upon insertion and a lot of pain when he manipulated it. He took the needle out and replaced it and it appeared to be fine. Also the needle in my right ankle caused discomfort.
Shortly after the treatment I experianced pain at both sites and some odd sensations in my right foot and calf (warmth and numbness). The doctor (who is an MD as well as an acupuncturist)said it was nothing to be concerned about.
Has anyone had acupuncture cause nerve damage in such a way? The literature says it can cause "nerve damage" but no specifics are mentioned as to symptoms or location of needles.
Anyone experience something similar?
thanks
I've been getting acupuncture to treat my lower back pain. At my last treatment the doctor placed a needles at several locations on my legs and back.
The needle behind my right knee caused pain upon insertion and a lot of pain when he manipulated it. He took the needle out and replaced it and it appeared to be fine. Also the needle in my right ankle caused discomfort.
Shortly after the treatment I experianced pain at both sites and some odd sensations in my right foot and calf (warmth and numbness). The doctor (who is an MD as well as an acupuncturist)said it was nothing to be concerned about.
Has anyone had acupuncture cause nerve damage in such a way? The literature says it can cause "nerve damage" but no specifics are mentioned as to symptoms or location of needles.
Anyone experience something similar?
thanks
I haven't read through all of these responses, but I am a very conscientious student in my last year of acupuncture school.
Yes, you can cause nerve damage if the angle and depth of insertion is not correct. There are certain points done at the base of the skull that can be and arguably are the most dangerous if they are inserted upward obliquely (the medulla of the brain is nearby). One of the previous posters was describing bladder and bowel dysfunction, etc.
I have actually had an acupuncturist who needles deeply damage the nerve in my wrist. There is a very popular point there (PC 6) that should be needled obliquely because the nerve is very close to the surface of the skin there, particularly if you are thin. When he inserted the needle, it was extremely painful and a lightning bolt sensation went down to my fingers. The point throbbed the entire session. The following days I experienced pain that woke me up in the middle of the night, tingling, numbness, and weakness of the hand.
Ironically, what helped the symptoms resolve was being needled in the same place more superficially. It took about 1-2 months to heal in me.
It is not abnormal to experience a dull pressure or tingling sensations or even a brief burning sensation (sometimes a vein is hit and this can't be prevented) upon insertion that subsides after a few seconds or a minute or two. What is abnormal is when the point hurts the entire time that the needle is retained, and hitting the nerve usually hurts very badly. A good acupuncturist will monitor any kind of pain you are having and adjust or pull out the needles accordingly.
Never go to a chiropractor or MD who is not also trained at a 4 year acupuncture institution. Many times they receive their certification in a weekend or two, and they have no idea of the theory of acupuncture (impossible to learn without years of study) or any real way of retaining appropriate depth and angle insertion. There are points that are near organs on the chest and back as well, and the angle/depth and cautions are drilled into your head as a student in a four-year setting.
Acupuncture is as much an art as it is a science, so knowing the theory behind it is very important. I am a cautious needler, I never go to the maximum depths in patients and I've never had any problems with anyone receiving my treatments.
Also of note: when receiving electro-acupuncture (e-stim), make sure the needles are stainless steel. Silver or gold-plated needles can electrolyze and lead to additional problems associated with metal toxicity in the body. Good quality brands of needles include Seirin, DBC, Cloud and Dragon.
Never go back to an acupuncturist who needles very deeply and has injured you in the past. Find one who is cautious and/or willing to needle superficially because they can help rectify some of the nerve damage, if you have experienced any in a session. Do inquire about their educational background/training. Don't go for dry needling practitioners who don't have a solid background in TCM.
Hope this was helpful for some of you here.
Yes, you can cause nerve damage if the angle and depth of insertion is not correct. There are certain points done at the base of the skull that can be and arguably are the most dangerous if they are inserted upward obliquely (the medulla of the brain is nearby). One of the previous posters was describing bladder and bowel dysfunction, etc.
I have actually had an acupuncturist who needles deeply damage the nerve in my wrist. There is a very popular point there (PC 6) that should be needled obliquely because the nerve is very close to the surface of the skin there, particularly if you are thin. When he inserted the needle, it was extremely painful and a lightning bolt sensation went down to my fingers. The point throbbed the entire session. The following days I experienced pain that woke me up in the middle of the night, tingling, numbness, and weakness of the hand.
Ironically, what helped the symptoms resolve was being needled in the same place more superficially. It took about 1-2 months to heal in me.
It is not abnormal to experience a dull pressure or tingling sensations or even a brief burning sensation (sometimes a vein is hit and this can't be prevented) upon insertion that subsides after a few seconds or a minute or two. What is abnormal is when the point hurts the entire time that the needle is retained, and hitting the nerve usually hurts very badly. A good acupuncturist will monitor any kind of pain you are having and adjust or pull out the needles accordingly.
Never go to a chiropractor or MD who is not also trained at a 4 year acupuncture institution. Many times they receive their certification in a weekend or two, and they have no idea of the theory of acupuncture (impossible to learn without years of study) or any real way of retaining appropriate depth and angle insertion. There are points that are near organs on the chest and back as well, and the angle/depth and cautions are drilled into your head as a student in a four-year setting.
Acupuncture is as much an art as it is a science, so knowing the theory behind it is very important. I am a cautious needler, I never go to the maximum depths in patients and I've never had any problems with anyone receiving my treatments.
Also of note: when receiving electro-acupuncture (e-stim), make sure the needles are stainless steel. Silver or gold-plated needles can electrolyze and lead to additional problems associated with metal toxicity in the body. Good quality brands of needles include Seirin, DBC, Cloud and Dragon.
Never go back to an acupuncturist who needles very deeply and has injured you in the past. Find one who is cautious and/or willing to needle superficially because they can help rectify some of the nerve damage, if you have experienced any in a session. Do inquire about their educational background/training. Don't go for dry needling practitioners who don't have a solid background in TCM.
Hope this was helpful for some of you here.
4 Comments
What is dry needling? I was told that I should look for a acupuncturist with OM certification which I did. He was Chinese from Tawain. A needle was inserted into the area of my left index finger knuckle and now I have a searing burning feeling in that area when I move in a certain way or when I exert pressure on that area using my hand. Any advice
This post is several years old, so don't know if this will get much notice. Dry needling is something usually done by physical therapists. It is not acupuncture. It is used to relax muscles. It isn't aiming for acupuncture points but instead the needle is inserted much deeper into, say, a chronically tight calf muscle to produce spasms in it that end up relaxing it. I've had it, didn't work, it hurts some, but it must work for some because it's widely practiced by physical therapists. Again, this isn't something a typical acupuncturist would necessarily care to learn because it doesn't come from Chinese medicine at all. There are many long threads on all kinds of sites of people who claim to have suffered nerve damage from acupuncture. I don't know what the whole story is with this, it never happened to me. Do know that acupuncturists vary a lot in how they do what they do. A true Chinese acupuncturist, while being a lot cheaper than a new-age American one, will do things that are often a lot more effective, or so I've been told, than the new-age ones trained at new-age centers in the US. But they also do some things that are more dangerous, because their techniques evolved before modern medicine was available. Acupuncture, by the way, isn't a science at all, it's completely an art. While studies do show it can work, they don't show why it works. The Chinese theory is not true -- it's based on a way of looking at things before we had microscopes and X-rays and MRIs and modern surgery. We know what the inside of a body looks like, and there aren't any acupuncture meridians there. Don't exist. So whatever those needles are doing, and again, the research shows it does work, we don't understand why. Know that a good education doesn't mean you're good at what you do. Most docs aren't very good at it. I assume acupuncturists vary a lot in quality as well. We're human. Some plumbers are good at it, some aren't. As consumers, it's impossible for us to know oftentimes when a highly trained person isn't very good at what they're doing because we have no way to judge them other than the results, which they often explain away. Because of where you got your treatment, it wasn't dry needling. I"d go back to the practitioner and tell him what happened and see if the explanation means anything to you. Natural medicine tends to work more slowly than invasive medicine, and sometime any form of medicine will cause pain before it eases it. I don't know that anyone can tell you definitively what's going on in your case because again, nobody understand how acupuncture actually works or why. It just does, but not for everyone or everything. If it doesn't go away soon, it's possible the needle was not inserted correctly, but can't know. That's why I'd talk to the practitioner about it, and maybe get a second opinion as well. I hope it works out.
Dry needling is actually orthopedic acupuncture/trigger point acupuncture. It is one style of acupuncture among many, but it has been co-opted by other healthcare professionals that do not want to go through the extensive 4-year education to become licensed as acupuncturists. Many of them have good intentions and do not even know that it is actually a specific style of acupuncture because the organizations/providers that hold these classes deny that it is. Dr. Travell who helped to propagate dry needling actually admitted to the general public that dry needling is acupuncture. Often, the training for "dry needling" is a 20-40 hour course--it is not regulated as whole the way that acupuncture is extensively regulated. This difference in training is the reason why many acupuncturists will encourage the public to seek out a licensed acupuncturist because it can create a public safety issue since trigger point acupuncture is an aggressive method of needling.
Acupuncturists lack lobbying power and organization in general, especially in comparison to other healthcare professionals like physical therapists, so this form of acupuncture has been re-branded as "dry needling" using Western medical theory and terminology. Licensed acupuncturists also learn Western medical theory and are taught about the biomedical effects of their treatments in addition to the classical Chinese medical theory. Some acupuncture schools teach orthopedic/trigger point acupuncture (aka dry needling), other acupuncturists learn it through CEU courses after they are licensed--some never choose to adopt this specific style of acupuncture. This causes confusion among the public who see acupuncturists who don't practice this style of acupuncture and assume that dry needling is different altogether. In states where acupuncturists are more concentrated (like California), dry needling is still currently illegal because it is recognized as acupuncture. My guess is that we will be out-funded and out-lobbied and eventually it will become the norm here, as well.
Many times, the message is spun that acupuncturists practice "woo woo" on the basis of "qi" and balancing "meridians" while the same type of filiform needle in the hands of a different medical therapist targets musculoskeletal structures to release tension and has biomedical effects (the latter is our end goal and what we were taught as part of our education, a well). When Chinese medical theory was developed, these modern day biomedical terms did not exist and so the language the field learns is being used against us as justification that we are less legitimate or practicing something wildly different when in reality it's just one style of acupuncture out of many.
Initially, hypodermic needles that are utilized in injections were being used when medical professionals recognized that needling specific areas resulted in pain relief. Because no injection was being given, it was called "dry" needling. The thicker gauge and hollow bore center made the process particularly painful, so solid filiform needles that acupuncturists use were then adopted for the same purpose. However, hypodermic needles have also been used in other countries like China for the better part of the last century by acupuncturists, so even that was not something new.
Hope this helps.
Acupuncturists lack lobbying power and organization in general, especially in comparison to other healthcare professionals like physical therapists, so this form of acupuncture has been re-branded as "dry needling" using Western medical theory and terminology. Licensed acupuncturists also learn Western medical theory and are taught about the biomedical effects of their treatments in addition to the classical Chinese medical theory. Some acupuncture schools teach orthopedic/trigger point acupuncture (aka dry needling), other acupuncturists learn it through CEU courses after they are licensed--some never choose to adopt this specific style of acupuncture. This causes confusion among the public who see acupuncturists who don't practice this style of acupuncture and assume that dry needling is different altogether. In states where acupuncturists are more concentrated (like California), dry needling is still currently illegal because it is recognized as acupuncture. My guess is that we will be out-funded and out-lobbied and eventually it will become the norm here, as well.
Many times, the message is spun that acupuncturists practice "woo woo" on the basis of "qi" and balancing "meridians" while the same type of filiform needle in the hands of a different medical therapist targets musculoskeletal structures to release tension and has biomedical effects (the latter is our end goal and what we were taught as part of our education, a well). When Chinese medical theory was developed, these modern day biomedical terms did not exist and so the language the field learns is being used against us as justification that we are less legitimate or practicing something wildly different when in reality it's just one style of acupuncture out of many.
Initially, hypodermic needles that are utilized in injections were being used when medical professionals recognized that needling specific areas resulted in pain relief. Because no injection was being given, it was called "dry" needling. The thicker gauge and hollow bore center made the process particularly painful, so solid filiform needles that acupuncturists use were then adopted for the same purpose. However, hypodermic needles have also been used in other countries like China for the better part of the last century by acupuncturists, so even that was not something new.
Hope this helps.
Again, I'm not sure this is accurate. I have had dry needling and I have had acupuncture, and the two have nothing in common. The Chinese theory of acupuncture has to do with energy and meridians. These probably don't actually exist as they thought hundreds of years ago but they discovered something. But dry needling only is done on the muscles, it goes deep, and it isn't aimed at acupuncture points, so it's hard to see how this is related to acupuncture. None of the TCM acupuncturists I've seen have even heard of it. It doesn't really matter, I guess, where it comes from, but if an acupuncturist is sticking a needle into you as deep as dry needling goes, I can see why so many are complaining about nerve damage from it. As for training, I agree, there's a real problem but it's mostly with chiropractors, who can become acupuncturists over a few weekends. Once you have any kind of medical degree, you can be certified to do a lot of things in way too short a time. I would advise anyone to avoid anyone for acupuncture who hasn't done the 4 year course, but again, just doing that doesn't mean your practitioner will be any good at it, and most of the practitioners we see in the US are not old Chinese people, they are new age folks trained in new age institutions. I don't know if the training is the same, but I'm guessing it's not. Now, I do realize that acupuncturists do perform a lot of things that aren't acupuncture as well, especially in China. Their history there goes back before modern medicine. And many also practice aromatherapy and herbal medicine and use electrical stim, which, again, isn't acupuncture, it's an entirely different modality of healing but one used by many chiropractors and acupuncturists. Personally, it's never done anything for me but intensified the pain, but theoretically it's something that's come from more modern medicine and is supposed to be anti-inflammatory in action. Just because something is done by an acupuncturist doesn't mean it's acupuncture -- people do more than one thing. Peace.
I had acupuncture done 4 days ago for fertility issues. She did the electroacupuncture on my body. I could feel sensations of my face getting very hot, my adrenal area (where she placed the needle on the outside of my calves) burning and the top of my head burning. She said that all of those symptoms were normal. Right after treatment I felt great and went home and did my epsom salts bath. That night I didn't sleep a wink. I also started feeling loss of lubrication in my eyes, no saliva flow, numbness in my legs from the knee down, and heaviness to my legs, headaches, pins and needles when i'm sleeping. It's Monday morning and I feel worse today than previous days. Now my left hand feels cold and numb, including all the other sensations that i'm getting. I have an appointment with her this morning, and I'm terrified. I'm afraid she will cause more symptoms or worsen the ones I have. I'm drinking about 3-4 litres of water per day and I'm 98lbs. I am taking today off of work because of how I feel. IF ANYONE HAS SOME POSITIVE INSIGHT, please let me know. Much appreciated.
1 Comments
Did ur symptoms ever go away??
Hi, you sound very knowledgeable so thought I'd ask you a question to see if you can advise me in some way. On October 1st, I was involved in a road traffic accident on a motorway, where two cars hit into the rear of my car. I felt immediate lower back pain and went to hospital, which they said I had trauma and bruising in my pelvis area. Exactly a week after the accident, my lower back on the left side, buttock and leg went into a massive spasm, with severe sciatica pain down my leg (which I'd never had before). I took anti-inflammatory and used ice all night, had a taxi to take me to hospital the following morning. I couldn't bend forward, even cleaning my teeth was very uncomfortable, dressing myself took a long time etc. Anyway, I was prescribed muscle relaxant and strong pain killers, also been having physio. The physio also does western form of acupuncture. He says my sacro-illiac joint is extremely tight on both sides, and uses his elbows to manipulate the area - extremely painful to say the least. Then he finishes treatment by using acupuncture. The first treatment I felt immediate relief, but then he was on holiday for a week. I tried The Bowen Technique not to postpone my recovery, which I woke the following day totally pain free, but pain started to return following days. Had my second physio session last Tuesday 28th October 2014.. Again extremely painful using elbows. Then he said he was going to use a long needle to go into my piriformis muscle for pain relief. The needle was as long as from my elbow to fingertips- and went in quite deep, at least half way I'd say, I was lying on my side. When he twiddled the needle I could feel a dull pain down my leg, sciatica pain again. I should have had another treatment the following Fri, 31st, which I had to cancel a I was so bruised (black and blue visible bruises on both sides of my buttocks, but much worse on the left side, where the needle went in), it was extremely tender. I am now a week after my last treatment, and I am still visibly bruised and sore, and feel as though I have nerve damage or ruptured muscle deep in my buttock, when I contract the muscle, when walking it hurts, also sciatica has returned following the last treatment, but a dull constant ache. Does this make any sense to you? What would you recommend? I feel as though to change physio or have a gentle treatment, maybe going back to have the bowen technique? I am really interested in your opinion. Thank you, Angela
I had 2 sessions of Chinese ACUPRESSURE 12 months ago. When I walked out after the second (extremely painful) treatment I was unable to walk straight or turn left. The symptoms have worsened over the year and now, after an xray and MRI of my head, I am being treated for brain injury. Memory, mobility and speech have all suffered. I hope you are fully recovered - I just want to make people aware that acupressure can go very wrong sometimes.
I am very sorry yo hear other people have suffered from receiving acupuncture. I had one acupuncture treatment a couple of weeks ago for lower back pain, this has left me with joint pain and a shuddering sensation throughout my body. As you can imagine feel very depressed because of this and I still have lower back pain. I was not told it will go away in time.
To all those people who have gone through or are going through peripheral nerve injury as a result of acupuncture... It can happen even though most acupuncturists dont want to admit it. It CAN happen and is a serious side effect. I am still suffering 3 months later as a result. Have started IV B complex and alpha lipoic acid to help heal my nerves faster. People didnt believe me that it was from acupuncture but it is and I DO NOT have an underlying issue. I am and was a healthy 32 year old young mom and went to an acupuncturist who obviously went too deep and didnt know that they were doing. This is real and a serious side effect that ALL acupuncturists should be wary of and warn their patients of.
"When we work on points along meridians that run just over nerve structures, we must familiarize ourselves with these structures and always bear in mind the locations and depths of nearby nerves when preparing to insert needles. Excessive depth of needling is the major cause of peripheral nerve damage, so if you are absolutely sure of the depth of the nerve trunk or branch, check before you treat. Its better to place a needle slightly too shallow than too deep"
"When we work on points along meridians that run just over nerve structures, we must familiarize ourselves with these structures and always bear in mind the locations and depths of nearby nerves when preparing to insert needles. Excessive depth of needling is the major cause of peripheral nerve damage, so if you are absolutely sure of the depth of the nerve trunk or branch, check before you treat. Its better to place a needle slightly too shallow than too deep"
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