14: Acupuncture Therapy in Sports Medicine

Published on 22/06/2015 by admin

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CHAPTER 14 Acupuncture Therapy in Sports Medicine

INTRODUCTION

Acupuncture has been a part of sports medicine since the dawn of Chinese civilization. The concept of Qi is the essence of Chinese martial arts as well as of acupuncture, and historically the masters of Chinese martial arts were also experts in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). They used acupuncture to treat acute and chronic martial arts injuries, and also to “tonify Qi,” meaning to activate the healing mechanism of the body to prevent injuries and improve performance.

Today the use of acupuncture in sports medicine is becoming more and more recognized. The continuing growth in popularity of recreational sports and fitness activities creates more injuries like strains, sprains, and broken bones. Now that we better understand the benefits of acupuncture we know that it can be very effective not only for martial arts injuries but also for preventing and treating all kinds of sports injuries for both professional and amateur athletes.

The most common sports injuries are musculoskeletal disorders such as damage to muscles, bursae, ligaments, capsules, and bones. In this chapter we focus on injuries caused by repetitive overuse of muscles, joints, and bones.

Any movement of the human body is a complicated biomechanical process that requires the coordination of many muscles and different parts of the body. When a muscle is weak or injured, it becomes tight, fatigued, inflamed, undernourished, or hypoxic. This injured muscle will disturb the normally synchronous and harmonious coordination between it and other muscles and the result will be pain or injury. This is why muscle injury can spread easily if not treated early. For example, if a group of injured muscles are left untreated, it can result in a stress fracture of the bone. Acupuncture can accelerate the healing of injured muscles and/or injured soft tissues, thus preventing the injury from spreading further. Treating injured muscles also indirectly helps to accelerate the recovery of injured bones because the healed muscles and the soft tissues allow for an increased blood supply, which is needed for regeneration of bone tissue.

When sport accidents cause severe injuries that affect the bones, orthopedic specialists should be consulted immediately. In these cases, acupuncture can still be used to promote rehabilitation and accelerate recovery after surgery.

Most sports injury pain is of an acute nature resulting from strain and/or sprain. If the acute pain symptoms are neglected (e.g., when some athletes try to perform while ignoring their pain), the acute pain may became chronic and lead to changes in the histological structure of the tissues. The chronic problem will eventually permanently deprive the soft tissues of their functional ability, such as, for example, the full range of contraction of the muscle.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TREATING PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR ATHLETES

There are two basic differences between patients who are professional athletes and those who are amateur athletes. First, professional athletes have a greater risk that a minor injury will become a severe or even disabling condition because their tight schedules do not give them sufficient time to recover. Amateur athletes usually have enough time to adequately treat their acute injuries. Second, the purpose of treating a sports injury in a professional athlete is not pain relief but functional recovery, whereas for nonprofessional athletes, pain relief is the primary purpose.

When a professional athlete is injured, the tight schedules of training and competition usually prevent the dedication of sufficient time to achieve proper healing, even in the case of a minor injury. Because of this some professional athletes start to perform again before they are fully recovered. The athletes and their coaches try to find a quick fix such as painkillers or steroid injections. But there is no such quick fix. As a result, minor injuries become chronic, and the damage can spread to other tissues. Consequently, many professional athletes have to live with chronic pain or, in some cases, they become disabled, threatening their entire athletic career.

Athletes and coaches should understand that in most cases pain does not appear suddenly but develops as a result of cumulative stress or injury in neuromusculoskeletal tissues, often accompanied by inflammation and swelling. This pathological process, if not completely reversed, gradually reduces the function and structure of the injured tissue to a critical level where the body starts to “cry” for help and protection. Pain means that the injured tissue has been deprived of a sufficient supply of blood, nutrition, and oxygen for some period of time. Acupuncture needling relaxes the stressed tissue and revives the normal supply of nutrients and oxygen. After treatment, the pain will disappear but the process of proper recovery of affected tissues—the replacement of damaged cells by healthy ones and the recovery of normal function and strength—still needs time.

WHAT TO DO WHEN A SPORTS INJURY OCCURS

When pain or injury occurs during sport activities, the athlete should stop and immediately seek a medical evaluation. Acupuncture treatments will be effective to reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation, and the athlete should avoid deep massage or stretching, which may further damage the tissues. An ice pack can be used for the first day or two, to reduce inflammation, and a heat pack should be used to promote blood circulation after the inflammation has been reduced. A few days away from training are essential. Although mild exercise is beneficial for recovery, no physical stress should be placed on the damaged tissues. After recovery is achieved, the athlete still needs to be careful to monitor the amount and intensity of the training, to keep it within a level that is acceptable for the injured tissue, gradually increasing back to a normal level. This may result in a few extra days before the athlete is able to resume training or competition but it will protect the body from permanent injury and minimize the threat to the athlete’s professional career.

There is a general agreement among pain specialists that 3 months are needed for natural healing of soft tissues. If pain from a sports injury continues after 3 months, it is regarded as chronic pain. Our clinical experience shows that in cases of minor and moderate acute pain from a sports injury, proper acupuncture treatment can relieve pain in less than 2 weeks. Without proper treatment, the initially treatable acute pain may become a chronic disorder.

Generally, athletes are healthy and physically active, with a high healing potential. Thus, most of their acute pain symptoms can be treated effectively by acupuncture within a range of a few hours to a few days. The painful tissue is usually physically damaged, energetically starving, physiologically abnormal, functionally disabled, and affected by an abnormal accumulation of metabolic toxins. Acupuncture needling can relieve pain in a very short period of time by desensitizing the nerve endings and reducing swelling and inflammation.

Pain pills, which block the perception of pain in the athlete’s brain, also work very well because a healthy body responds better to pain medication than does an unhealthy one.

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