Use of acupuncture, other alternative therapies on the rise

By Rick Brewer
Record Staff Writer
June 26, 2007 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - You're not alone if you've gone outside traditional medicine to treat your aches, pains and illnesses.

It is believed that about 40 percent of the population uses alternative therapies, such as acupuncture, at least once by age 33. Baby boomers and post-baby boomers constitute the largest percentage of clients.

That's meant more business for Dr. Brian Chee C. Loh and other alternative therapy practitioners. There are five acupuncture clinics in Stockton, two in Lodi, and one each in Lathrop and Tracy. Loh, a trained surgeon, is one of four acupuncturists at Pacific Complementary Medicine Center on Harding Way.

Although the exact number of patients is unknown, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate customers are on the rise.

"One of the ways we know it's growing is that we now have a staff of four acupuncturists, and they're kept pretty busy. Another is that our Web site is getting about 2,000 hits per month," said Teresa Chen, program coordinator for the Pacific Complementary Medicine Center. "It seems like people who move here from the Bay Area want this service, even if they have to pay for it out of their own pockets."
Sayhieng Khy was inadvertently knocked to the ground by another shopper at the Stockton Wal-Mart in early June. By that night, her legs and neck were sore and her feet swollen.

Instead of going to Kaiser or popping a bunch of ibuprofen, Khy turned to her acupuncturist for pain management. She went to Huai Yang Li, a doctor of oriental medicine who has a solo practice on North El Dorado Street. Huai Yang Li stuck a series of needles into Khy's skin - between the thumb and index finger, along the lower legs and near her biceps - and attached them to a small machine that sent about nine volts of electric current into the needles.

Every so often, Khy's hand shook noticeably.

"I only started doing this last month," Khy said. "Before, I was scared."

She overcame her fear of the needles and said her pain is subsiding.

"I feel a lot better," she said.

The history of acupuncture can be traced back centuries. It is based on the idea that each body has several patterns of energy flow essential for health. Disruptions of this flow, known as qi (pronounced chee) is believed to cause disease.

Acupuncture describes the family of procedures involved in stimulating certain pressure points of the skin to reintroduce qi to affected areas. The most common technique uses thin, metallic needles to penetrate the skin. They are then manually manipulated or electronically stimulated. Other acupuncturists might use pressure, heat, or lasers on the points.

Li said there are 360 named pressure points throughout the body and hundreds of nameless ones.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently removed acupuncture needles from the category of experimental medical devices. It now regulates them as it does surgical scalpels and syringes. Each needle may only be used once.

Researchers from Harvard University conducted their first study of alternative medicines, including acupuncture, in 1990. After studying 16 therapies not taught in most U.S. medical schools, researchers found that one-third of those interviewed sought treatment from acupuncturists, doctors of chiropractic and other nontraditional health professionals. Three-fourths of those who did so paid for the treatments themselves, and more than 80 percent did not tell their primary-care physicians about using such means.

"The frequency of use of unconventional therapy in the United States is far higher than previously reported," researchers said at the time.

But Stephen Barrett, vice-president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, a nonprofit advocacy group that focuses on confronting health misinformation, has spent more than a decade poking holes in the stated benefits of acupuncture. He runs the Web site www.quackwatch.com, where his paper against the use of acupuncture denotes that few trustworthy single- or double-blind studies have been performed to document the pain relief claims of acupuncturists. He said it's an unproven treatment that insurance companies should not be required to cover.

Contact reporter Rick Brewer at (209) 546-8294 or rbrewer@recordnet.com.