Thank you for those who came out for our Community Caring Day! Your donations for acupuncture helped support out favorite environmental organizations: FLOW (Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed), Sierra Club, and the National Park Foundation. It was so wonderful to have our community gather in a healing space to help support the environment!
February 14th of 2017 was a big day for acupuncture. The American College of Physicians (ACP) issued new clinical guideline recommending acupuncture among other noninvasive and non-drug therapies for acute, subacute and chronic low back pain. With this clinical guideline, acupuncture takes another step toward the mainstream of medical care. We consider this a big win for our profession and for patients. For starters, we know that there is so much we can do with acupuncture for helping back pain.
We can help our patients avoid surgery and narcotic pain killers, improve their quality of life, and offer a solution with no negative side effects. Physicians are the trusted professionals whom most people seek out to get advise on health care decisions. Now that acupuncture has become recognized by the ACP as a first resort treatment to help back pain, we hope to be seeing even more patients referred from their doctors for this widespread problem.
The ACP guideline reports that “low back pain is one of the most common reasons for physician visits in the United States.” In 2006, “the total costs attributable to low back pain in the United States were estimated at $100 billion.”
Recommendation 1: “Given that most patients with acute or subacute low back pain improve over time regardless of treatment, clinicians and patients should select nonpharmacologic treatment with superficial heat. . . , massage, acupuncture, or spinal manipulation. . . . If pharmacologic treatment is desired, clinicians and patients should select nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or skeletal muscle relaxants. . . . (Grade: strong recommendation)”
Recommendation 2: “For patients with chronic low back pain, clinicians and patients should initially select nonpharmacologic treatment with exercise, multidisciplinary rehabilitation, acupuncture, mindfulness-based stress reduction. . . , tai chi, yoga, motor control exercise, progressive relaxation, electromyography, biofeedback, low-level laser therapy, operant therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, or spinal manipulation. . . . (Grade: strong recommendation)
Recommendation 3: “In patients with chronic low back pain who have had an inadequate response to nonpharmacologic therapy, clinicians and patients should consider pharmacologic treatment with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as a first-line therapy. Clinicians should only consider opioids as an option in patients who have failed the aforementioned treatments and only if the potential benefits outweigh the risks for individual patients and after a discussion of known risks and realistic benefits with patients. (Grade: weak recommendation, moderate-quality evidence)”!
At Urban Acupuncture Center we treat patients for back pain in several ways. We can use distal needling by utilizing points on arms and legs, which are extremely effective for back pain. Sometimes people respond better to local needling, and we can treat in Westerville in the private room on a table. With local points used, we will be working directly with points on your back. We may decide to add in some cupping as well to help relax the muscles and increase blood flow. If you have questions about how acupuncture can help you or someone you know, please do not hesitate to contact us!
Photographs by TOM GRIFFITH
On display at Urban Acupuncture Center, Clintonville through April 2017.
Artist Statement:
Before becoming a yoga teacher and massage therapist I studied visual communications, photojournalism and, ultimately, Buddhist art history. I have had a lifetime love affair with the camera; behind the lens, always the observer in mostly silent contemplation. As a child I was fascinated by the visual documentation held within the family album. After inheriting my brother’s camera as a teenager I began to document my hikes and wanderings through the city and woods. My interest is in natural light and the extraordinary of the seemingly mundane. Movement, pattern, flow and physical expression are what drive my compositions. I see these pieces like tiles that could be endlessly rearranged to emphasize or change the perspective, writing and rewriting the story within.
New! Urban Acupuncture Center Racerback T’s in light and dark grey
As a life-long resident of Champaign County, Ohio, I have become more aware in recent years of the beauty that surrounds me. The gently rolling hills and well-maintained farmland offer pastoral vistas. The interplay of organic and ever-changing cloud formations contrasting with the geometric forms of barns, silos, and fields provide subject matter for my paintings. These landscapes are often located within a few miles of my home, scenes I encounter daily.
My paintings have the look of being painted Plein Air, but are studio creations. Three years ago I started painting on our screened-in porch. It offered plenty of natural light, and at the time was not often used.
I believe people still want to look at beautiful things. These are the landscapes, the rural vistas, I find most appealing. My paintings reveal the simple, honest, direct beauty of our local landscape.
Leigh Ann Inskeep-Simpson received her B.A. in Art Education from Otterbein College. She received her M.F.A. in Painting from Miami University. She teaches Art, Art History, and Photography at Urbana High School. She can be reached through her website at www.LeighAnnInskeep-Simpson.com.
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