The Praeger Handbook of Acupuncture for Pain Management

This unique text examines 30 specific pain management case studies to explain pain treatments from the perspectives of Eastern acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine as well as that of Western medical practice.

Millions of Americans are affected or incapacitated by a wide variety of chronic pain—from heel spurs, herniated discs, and hip bursitis to osteoarthritis, plantar fasciitis, and rotator cuff tears. As complex as the injuries and problems can be, medically speaking, for many pain sufferers, the question is simple: can acupuncture work to make my pain go away? This book provides information from 30 different pain management cases to shed light on the effectiveness of acupuncture treatments in specific situations.

Presented in easy-to-understand, plain language, the author explains why acupuncture works to stop pain from the theoretical frameworks of both traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. Each chapter describes the potential sources and systems of specific pain, depicts the acupuncture points for that pain, and explains how they work. The case studies—selected from more than 9,000 patients seen by Dr. Xu during his 14 years of clinical practice in the United States—document how acupuncture has effectively granted these individuals relief from pain, whether viewed from the Western science of neurology, or the Eastern theories of yin and yang and keeping the body's energies in a balanced state.