Chronic Low Back Pain

Acupuncture treatment for chronic low back pain has been proven to provide clinically significant pain relief compared to no treatment or conventional treatment in meta-analyses involving tens of thousands of patients, and the American College of Physicians (ACP) guidelines recommend acupuncture as a first-line non-pharmacological treatment for chronic low back pain. Mechanistically, reported effects include suppression of descending pain through the secretion of endogenous opioids and serotonin, increased local blood flow, relaxation of muscle tone, and readjustment of the pain processing circuits in the central nervous system that have become hypersensitive in chronic pain. In Korean medicine, pain is viewed as arising from the blockage of Qi and blood or from an insufficient supply of these energies. Acupuncture is a treatment that stimulates the flow of meridians passing through the lower back to facilitate the circulation of blocked Qi and blood. However, in cases of low back pain that has persisted for 10 years, the condition has often progressed beyond simple Qi stagnation to become blood stasis pain or kidney deficiency pain, so there may be limitations to using general acupuncture alone. Dongjedang performs ultrasound-guided, stepwise external treatment based on the stage of pain. This involves starting with acupuncture, separating hardened adhesions with moxibustion, promoting regeneration of stretched ligaments with fire acupuncture and thread embedding, and adding bee venom and pharmacopuncture if inflammation is present. When combined with constitution-tailored herbal medicine that nourishes kidney energy and resolves blood stasis, the recovery from chronic pain is significantly greater than with acupuncture alone.