Acupuncture Pain Center, Houston, TX

Overview

Pain is more common reason people visits acupuncture clinic in China and US, in history and now. Acupuncture is naturally, safety and effective treatment for pain relief and pain management; follow pain conditions are mostly have effective result by acupuncture therapy.

Low Back Pain

Back pain in the lower back or low back pain is not a specific disease; it is a symptom that may occur from a variety of different processes. The pain problem in up and low back is more common symptom. Back pain may occur from a variety of different processes. Mostly visitor with back pain in my office is musculoskeletal pain syndromes, injury or nerve root syndromes.

Musculoskeletal pain syndromes that produce low back pain include myofascial pain syndromes and fibromyalgia.
Injuries: Spine injuries such as sprains and fractures can cause either acute or chronic pain.
Nerve root syndromes are those that produce symptoms of nerve impingement (a nerve is touched), often due to a herniation (or bulging) of the disc between the lower back bones.

In the early stage of low back pain, acupuncture mostly have good result for relief the pain, many acute low back pains can be reliefed after first treatment with one or few needles. The chronic back pain or stiffness may improve after few time of the treatment, some take more long time to get benefit. Acupuncture also can do pain management by couple times treatment between a year.

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Sciatica

The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in human body, sciatic is a symptom of another problem involves the nerve, such as a herniated disc. The pain occurs along a pathway from low back to buttock, calf and foot, mostly happen to one side. Some case may feel numbness or muscle weakness.

Acupuncture treats both sciatic and low back pain may necessary; the moxibustion technique is often used for this kind of pain, mostly pain may relieved after couple times of treatment.

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Neck Pain

Types

Muscle strains - Overuse and stress often triggers muscle strains, become fatigued and eventually strained neck pain.
Worn joints - Like the other joints in our body, neck joints experience wear and tear with age, which can cause osteoarthritis in neck. Neck (cervical) osteoarthritis can cause pain and stiffness in neck.
Disk disorders - With the age increase, the cushioning disks between vertebrae become dry and stiff, narrowing the spaces in spinal column, disk also can herniate.
Injuries - Often result in whiplash injuries, which occur when the head is jerked forward and back, stretching the soft tissues of the neck beyond their limits.

Symptoms

Neck pain (may radiate to the arms or shoulder)
Loss of sensation or abnormal sensations of the shoulders, arms, or (rarely) legs
Weakness of the arms or (rarely) legs
Neck stiffness that progressively worsens
Loss of balance
Headaches, particularly in the back of the head
Loss of control of the bladder or bowels (if spinal cord is compressed)

Causes

A common cause of neck pain is muscle strain or tension. Usually, everyday activities are to blame. Such activities include bending over a desk for hours, having poor posture while watching TV or reading, placing your computer monitor too high or too low, sleeping in an uncomfortable position, or twisting and turning the neck in a jarring manner while exercising.

Traumatic accidents or falls can cause severe neck injuries like vertebral fractures, whiplash, blood vessel injury, and even paralysis.

Other causes include herniated disk, fibromyalgia (pain syndrome throughout the body), and arthritis. Meningitis, although much less common, can cause significant neck stiffness.

Like situation in low back pain, acute, early stage of pain onset or injury will be easy to cure or improve, in chronic or with long history, may need more long time to improve the pain. Now, more common cause is the stress, people work on computer with too long time.

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Headache

Primary headache (three main types of headaches)

Tension headaches - The pain like a tightening on both sides of the head, often result of stress or bad posture, causes tightening of the muscles in the neck and the scalp. This type of headache occurs mostly in women over age 20.
Migraine headaches - The pains is intense and throbbing, often involve one side of the head, may sensitive to light or noise, more common in women. There are two types of migraine: migraine with an aura and migraine without aura. An aura is a group of symptoms that develop before the onset of the main headache.
Cluster headaches - With non-throbbing and usually are felt on one side, some behind an eye.

Attacks may be triggered by:

Tension in the scalp and neck muscles
Allergic reactions
Lights, loud noises
Stress
Alcohol
Menstrual cycle fluctuations

None primary headache, result from another medical condition.

Sinus headaches
Hormone headaches
Chronic progressive headaches, result of a head injury, trauma, or tumor.

Acupuncture treats the primary headache have quite effective result, some case in acute headache attack: the therapy may relief pain soon. Also, acupuncture help maintain and prevent headache.

The None Primary headache, acupuncture therapy may relief the pain but need original cause treatment for sinus or injury.

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Shoulder Pain

Causes

Also called rotator cuff pain, the most common cause is when the tendons become trapped under this arch. The compressed tendons become inflamed or damaged. This may occur from general wear and tear as we get older, an activity that requires constant shoulder use like baseball pitching, or an injury.

Frozen shoulder syndrome occurs when you don't move your shoulder because of pain or injury. The muscles or connective structures stiffen up inside the shoulder and make any motion painful and difficult.
Inflammation of nearby tendons, such as those connected to the bicep muscles of your arms, from overuse or injury.
Arthritis in the joints about the shoulder (gradual narrowing of the joints and loss of protective cartilage).
Bursitis (inflammation of a fluid-filled sac, or bursa that lies between tendon and skin or between tendon and bone). Normally a bursa protects the joint and helps make movement more fluid.
Fractures of the shoulder bones.
Dislocation of your shoulder, which is when the ball-shaped head of your arm comes out of the socket.

Injury and Frozen shoulder syndrome are more common type can see in my office. Frozen shoulder syndrome is more often happen to people age around fifty years old, because the aging process, in China also called “fifty shoulders”.

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Knee pain

Knee pain usually results from overuse, poor form during physical activity, not warming up or cooling down, or inadequate stretching. Simple causes of knee pain often clear up on their own with self care. Being overweight can put you at greater risk for knee problems.

Knee pain can be caused by:

Arthritis -- including rheumatoid, osteoarthritis, and gout
Baker's cyst -- a fluid-filled swelling behind the knee that may accompany inflammation from other causes, like arthritis
Bursitis -- inflammation from repeated pressure on the knee, such as kneeling for long periods of time, overuse, or injury
Connective tissue disorders such as lupus
Dislocation of the kneecap
Iliotibial band syndrome -- a hip disorder related to injury of the thick band that runs from your hip to the outside of your knee
Infection in the joint
Knee injuries -- may cause bleeding into your knee, which worsens the pain
Tendinitis -- a pain in the front of your knee that gets worse when going up and down stairs or inclines
Torn cartilage (a meniscus tear) -- pain felt on the inside or outside of the knee joint
Torn ligament (ACL tear) -- leads to pain and instability of the knee
Strain or sprain -- minor injuries to the ligaments caused by sudden or unnatural twisting

The chronic arthritis knee pain is very common in over weight and senior people, compare with other kind of treatment like pain medicine or surgery, acupuncture therapy is a safety and effective method to relief pain and management.

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Ankle, Heel and Foot Pain

Foot pain can be caused by:

Bunions -- a protrusion at the base of the big toe, which can become inflamed. Bunions often develop over time from wearing narrow-toed shoes.
Hammer toes -- toes that curl downward into a claw-like position.
Calluses and corns -- thickened skin from friction or pressure. Calluses are on the balls of the feet or heels. Corns appear on your toes.
Plantar warts -- from pressure on the soles of your feet.
Fallen arches -- also called flat feet.
Broken bones
Stress fracture
Arthritis
Gout -- common in the big toe, which becomes red, swollen, and very tender
Plantar fasciitis -- see heel pain
Bone spur -- see heel pain
Sprains -- see ankle pain
Bursitis of the heel -- see heel pain
Tendinitis -- see heel pain
Osteoarthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Chronic gouty arthritis
Psoriatic arthritis
Septic arthritis
Heel bursitis (inflammation of the back of the heel) can be caused by landing hard or awkwardly on the heel, or by pressure from shoes.
Achilles tendinitis is inflammation of the large tendon.

The risk of foot pain is increases with aging, when people with congenital deformities and diseases of the blood vessels, nerves, skin, joints, and hormones (e.g., diabetes).

The more often cause of foot problem in my office is heel and ankle pain by stress, over weight or injury, if foot pain related with low back pain, may need treatment both foot and low back pain.

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Wrist and Hand Pain

Causes:

Ligament sprains and tears
Tendinitis
Fractures
Repetitive strain injuries
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Osteoarthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Other diseases

Most wrist pain comes from arthritis or an injury to our wrist joint, but certain systemic diseases can also affect the bones and tissues in wrist. These include diabetes, gout, Paget's disease, leukemia, scleroderma and lupus erythematosus.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is common in people who perform repetitive motions of the hand and wrist, such as typing. The condition occurs more common in women than men.

Symptoms

Weakness in one or both hands
Numbness or tingling in the thumb and next two or three fingers of one or both hands
Numbness or tingling of the palm of the hand
Pain in wrist or hand in one or both hands
Pain extending to the elbow
Problems with fine finger movements (coordination) in one or both hands
Weak grip or difficulty carrying bags (a common complaint)
Wasting away of the muscle under the thumb (in advanced or long-term cases)

Like situation in neck and shoulder pain, now, more common cause in wrist and hand pain is overused hands in computer key board. Acupuncture needle can help a lot for pain relief and management.

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Elbow Injuries and Disorders

Many things can make elbow hurt. A common cause is tendinitis, an inflammation or injury to the tendons that attach muscle to bone. This is a sports injury, often from playing tennis or golf, so another name is tennis elbow, also possible get tendinitis from overuse of the elbow.

Other causes of elbow pain include sprains, strains, fractures, dislocations, bursitis and arthritis. Treatment depends on the cause.

Acupuncture is helpful kind of treatment for elbow tendinitis or overuse.

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Write by Chen Xia, PhD, LAc
June 13, 2008

Resources used:
Medical Encyclopedia, National Library of Medicine
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org