Medical acupuncture: Giving hope to patients living with chronic pain
With more than 5.4 million Australians living with chronic pain, a condition that’s typically difficult to manage and often complicated by comorbidities, doctors are embracing medical acupuncture – with life-changing results for their patients.
Dr Dilini Jayasekara is a Rural Generalist working in regional Gippsland, where pain is a common presenting complaint for the largely elderly population and has a significant impact on patients’ everyday life.
With no pain specialists locally, her patients must travel to metropolitan Melbourne for specialist input or face an often months-long wait to be seen at the local hospital’s pain clinic.
Dilini said this placed additional strain on GPs to provide appropriate care for patients.
“It was out of curiosity that I raised the question of advanced training in pain management at the start of my GP training,” she said.
“Advanced training in pain management was a pilot programme at the time, which consisted of many aspects, including acupuncture.
“My GP supervisor was a medical acupuncturist. He had a good patient load for acupuncture with satisfactory outcomes, which raised my interest in medical acupuncture despite my initial lack of knowledge.
“Since then, it has been an important tool in my everyday practice.”
An evidence-based alternative in primary care
Dilini said acupuncture was an evidence-based alternative for managing a variety of pain conditions, with the potential to improve overall patient wellbeing.
“In my practice, I utilise acupuncture to provide immediate relief, for example, to relieve muscle spasm in lower back pain, thereby improving pain,” she said.
“I also use it as a complementary treatment to reduce analgesia requirements, and to help wean patients off analgesia, especially opioid-dependent patients.”
Dilini added acupuncture consults were eligible for Medicare rebate, making it financially attractive to patients.
From menopause to migraines
Chronic pain is the most common presentation for which Dilini uses acupuncture.
“In addition, acute pain conditions such as migraine, joint pains and dysmenorrhoea, and neuropathic pain conditions such as postherpetic neuralgia, neck pain, and sciatica are a few examples of pain presentations for which I have successfully utilised acupuncture as a form of management,” she said.
It has also played a vital role in Dilini’s management of menopausal symptoms, irregular menstrual cycles and muscle spasms – and helped her improve overall patient wellbeing by relieving anxiety, improving sleep, and promoting homeostasis of organ systems.
Providing hope to patients
Dilini said while medical acupuncture was an emerging treatment modality supported by multiple studies, there remained a lack of awareness among patients and clinicians.
Needle phobia may also cause resistance to treatment.
For Dilini, recruiting her first few patients required open discussions about the available literature on the successful management of a variety of conditions and improvements in overall wellbeing.
“Most of these patients have suffered from pain-related conditions for years, with poor outcomes from multiple treatment modalities and adverse effects from various analgesics,” she said.
“The introduction of acupuncture was able to provide hope to these patients.
“It is relatively safe with minimal adverse effects when performed by an experienced clinician.”
GP/RG-led training for GPs
Dilini completed her training with the Australian Medical Acupuncture College, which was delivered online as well as through workshops and mentoring sessions by GPs qualified in medical acupuncture.
She encouraged other registrars and New Fellows to consider adding medical acupuncture to their GP toolkit.
“The course content is well structured and delivered by GPs who have a good understanding of the workload and demands of general practice,” she said.
“On a personal note, I completed the medical acupuncture course while sitting for my fellowship exams and managed to complete it successfully.
“Therefore, the workload and the course content can be managed by a candidate while meeting the professional and personal demands of everyday life.”
