More than one in 10 men experience chronic prostatitis, with frustrating symptoms including pain, urinary problems and sexual dysfunction. Chronic prostatitis / pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS) is the most common form of prostatitis – and the most challenging to treat, since it often has no identifiable cause (unlike acute or chronic bacterial prostatitis). The challenging nature of chronic prostatitis / CPPS is what makes new study findings identifying acupuncture as a potential treatment option so exciting.
Researchers performed a multicenter, randomized, sham-controlled trial at 10 tertiary hospitals in China. Participants included 440 men with moderate to severe chronic prostatitis / CPPS, randomized equally into an acupuncture group and a sham group for comparison.
Over the eight-week study period, participants received 20 sessions of active or sham acupuncture, with responders "defined as participants who achieved a clinically important reduction of at least 6 points from baseline on the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index at weeks 8 and 32."
At week eight, 60.6 percent of the acupuncture group were classified as responders vs. only 36.8 percent in the sham group. Improvements in the acupuncture group were maintained after 24 weeks of follow-up (following eight weeks of treatment), with 61.5 percent classified as responders. By week 32, only 28.3 percent of sham-group participants were classified as responders. The study required between-group differences in treatment response to be significant at both time points (weeks eight and 32) as a condition of "sustained efficacy."
Source
Sun Y, et al. Efficacy of acupuncture for chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome. Ann Intern Med, 2021 Aug. 17 (published online ahead of print).
A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Acupuncture can be highly effective in cases of nasal congestion so common in allergy presentations; so much so that I often treat such issues using acupuncture protocols alone. In cases of seasonal allergies with highly predictable causes such as obvious elevations of environmental allergens, I use a skeleton acupuncture prescription that can easily be fleshed out to target potential underlying patterns and effectively customized to the patient.
The field of acupuncture in the U.S. continues to grow in visibility, patient demand and clinical effectiveness. Yet behind the curtain, many acupuncturists are quietly struggling to keep their doors open. While the profession is rooted in centuries of healing tradition, modern economic pressures – particularly those driven by insurance limitations, low reimbursement rates and job-market saturation – are making it increasingly difficult for licensed acupuncturists to thrive.
