Prostatitis gets little press, but it surely's a standard inflammatory condition that accounts for greater than two million visits to doctors' offices within the United States every year. Some cases are attributable to bacteria that will be easily diagnosed and treated with antibiotics. But greater than 90% of the time, prostatitis symptoms (which might include painful urination and ejaculation, pelvic pain, and impotence) don’t have any obvious cause. This is known as chronic nonbacterial prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, or CP/CPPS. Treatments are different. Doctors sometimes start with antibiotics if the condition precedes a urinary tract infection. They can also prescribe anti-inflammatory pain relievers, stress reduction techniques, pelvic floor exercises, and sometimes medications reminiscent of alpha blockers, which chill out tight muscles within the prostate and bladder.
Another treatment that may go for some men is acupuncture. A 2018 Statement testing Three published studies have found that acupuncture has the potential to scale back CP/CPPS symptoms without the uncomfortable side effects related to drug treatment.
Now, the outcomes of a brand new publication Clinical trial Acupuncture provides long-lasting symptom relief. Published in reputed journal. History of Internal Medicinethe outcomes provide encouraging news for CP/CPPS victims.
Acupuncture involves inserting single-use needles into “acupoints” at various points on the body, after which stimulating them manually or with heat or electrical stimulation. During the study, researchers from ten institutions in China assigned 440 men with prostatitis to receive 20 sessions (over eight weeks) of real acupuncture, or a control sham procedure through which needles are inserted away from traditional acupoints. .
The researchers were medical doctors, but treatments were administered by certified acupuncturists with five years of undergraduate education and no less than two years of clinical experience. Treatment profit was assessed using the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (NIH-CPSI), which assigns scores for pain, urinary function, and quality of life. After the eight-week treatment session, the lads were tracked for twenty-four weeks.
By week eight, just over 60% of men within the acupuncture group were reporting significant improvement in symptoms (excluding sexual dysfunction), in comparison with 37% of men within the placebo group. Importantly, these differences were little modified by week 32, indicating that the advantages of acupuncture were stable several months after treatment was initiated.
Exactly how acupuncture relieves the symptoms of prostatitis is unclear. The study authors point to several possibilities, including that stimulation at acupoints promotes the discharge of naturally occurring opioid-like chemicals (enkephalins, endorphins, and dynorphins) with pain-killing properties. The authors hypothesize that acupuncture can also have anti-inflammatory effects, and the therapeutic experience can also have psychological advantages leading to improved symptoms.