Tinnitus Treatment - Back Acupuncture with Tuina Found More Effective Than Standard Acupuncture

There are many treatment methods within Chinese Medicine and acupuncture theories and over time practitioners tend to gravitate towards certain methods more than others based on what they have seen effective for various conditions.  In the following study researchers from the acupuncture and moxibustion department within the Affiliated Hospital of Tongren Polytechnic in Tongren China compared conventional acupuncture treatment (i.e. meridian based treatment) to what they called "spinal balancing intervention" which was largely back points with tuina for the treatment of tinnitus.

Researchers recruited 120 patients with tinnitus and evenly divided them into a standard acupuncture group and a back point/tuina group ("spinal balancing").

Within the "spinal balancing group" the following points were used with acupuncture and tuina massage:

• Huatuo Jiaji
• SI 19
• TH 17
• GB 20
• UB 9
• UB 10
• among others most likely based on palpatory diagnosis (i.e. tension/pain upon pressure in the area).

The conventional acupuncture group used local and meridian based points appropriate to each individual patient.

Patients were treated for 3 sessions and then their symptoms were evaluated.  Within the "spinal balancing" group the curative rate was 70% and the total effective rate was 98.3% compared with 45% (cure) and 86.7% (effective) within the conventional treatment group.  Within a 3 month followup the recurrence rate within the "spinal balancing" group was lower than that of the conventional acupuncture group 5.1% vs. 13.5%.