Patients Tap Into 'Energy Movement' of Acupuncture

Dr. Brett Kueber recalls his first experience with acupuncture. It was before the Purdue University aeronautical engineering grad went to medical school.

"My golden retriever had severe arthritis. I had to help her to even stand up," Kueber said. The dog's quality of life was so diminished Kueber decided putting the dog to sleep was the most humane thing. But the veterinarian offered a different option.

"He told me he had just taken a course on using acupuncture in dogs. He asked if I would be willing to let him try it." Kueber agreed. The next day at home, after the first treatment, "She ran up to me with her ball and wanted to play. She was running around like nothing was wrong."

For Kueber, it was an epiphany: "There's no placebo effect in dogs," he said.

Seven years of medical school and residency later, plus a 300-hour course in acupuncture at UCLA's Helms Medical Institute, Kueber now incorporates acupuncture into his practice at DeKalb Medical Services in Garrett, which is affiliated with DeKalb Memorial Hospital in Auburn, Ind.

Energy-Moving Treatment
Twelve years ago, the National Institutes of Health issued a consensus statement on acupuncture: "There is sufficient evidence of acupuncture's value to expand its use into conventional medicine and to encourage further studies of its physiology and clinical value." Yet a medical doctor doing acupuncture in northeast Indiana is a rarity.

"Acupuncture is an energy-moving treatment," Kueber said. When he inserts thin needles at strategic points of the skin, turns them or applies mild electrical stimulation, the premise is the blocked energy pathway is opened. Sometimes multiple treatments are needed, other times the response is immediate, as with soft-tissue injuries.

"That's where acupuncture shines," he said. If it's done soon after a sprained ankle, the signals from the brain that elicit a cascade of responses such as swelling and spasms are interrupted.

Studies are also looking at whether acupuncture activates natural pain-reducing chemicals in the brain. Using functional MRIs -- real-time scans of the brain -- changes in the pain centers during acupuncture are visible.

'A Firm Believer'
Justin O'Rourke, 51, of Auburn, tried numerous things, including muscle relaxants and chiropractic, to ease the pain of a pulled hamstring. Nothing helped. A carpenter by trade, O'Rourke plays with the Indiana Dragons, a lacrosse travel team. He decided to try acupuncture.

"I was hesitant to have a bunch of needles stuck in me." But the needles didn't hurt, he said. After four treatments, the pain was gone for good. His daughter Mollie, 19, also has found relief from headaches with acupuncture.

When he pictured trying acupuncture, O'Rourke said, "I thought you'd go in there and there'd be incense burning, beads hanging in the doorway. Dr. Kueber's office looks like any other regular doctor's office. I was skeptical ... but wow, for me, I'm a firm believer."

Military hospitals are using acupuncture to treat amputees who feel phantom pain in the missing limb. The thinking is that the treatment interferes with the brain's processing centers. In March, a pilot program was begun to train 44 U.S. Air Force, Navy and Army doctors to use acupuncture as part of emergency care in combat hospitals.