[Acupuncture treatment of regulating spirit, activating blood and relieving pain for thalamic pain].
OBJECTIVE
To compare the clinical effect of acupuncture treatment and western medicine Carbamazepine for thalamic pain.


METHODS
Crossover trial design was used, 11 cases diagnosed as thalamic pain were randomly divided into two groups according to the mini-unbalance-index method, group I (with 6 cases received acupuncture first and then western medicine) and group II (with 5 cases received western medicine first and then acupuncture). When the effects were evaluated, the two groups were named as acupuncture group and western medicine group, 11 cases in each group. The method of clearing away the heart fire, regulating the spirit, activating blood and relieving pain was adopted in acupuncture treatment, Ximen (PC 4), Yinxi (HT 6), Xuehai (SP 10) and Zhaohai (KI 6) were selected; the western medicine group was treated with oral administration of Carbamazepine, and one course as well as the eluting period were both 10 days. The effects were evaluated with visual analogue scale (VAS) and evaluation scale of Anderson Cancer Center pain in US (MD Pain Evaluation value) respectively.


RESULTS
The VAS and MD value in two groups were obviously decreased after treatment (both P < 0.05), while there was no significant difference between two groups; the markedly effective rate of pain relieving in acupuncture group was 63.6% (7/11), which was higher than that of 36.4% (4/11) in western medicine group, but there was no significant difference between two groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Acupuncture treatment of regulating spirit, activating blood and relieving pain has a better therapeutic effect for thalamic pain, and can reach to the same therapeutic effect with western medicine Carbamazepine.
Zhang
Xue
X
Tianjin University of TCM, Tianjin 300193, China.
Fan
Xiao-Nong
XN
Ding
Luo
L
Zhang
Hai-Tao
HT
Wu
Lian-Zhong
LZ
Wang
Hai-Rong
HR
D015670:Acupuncture Therapy; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001775:Blood Circulation; D002220:Carbamazepine / Q000627:therapeutic use; D018592:Cross-Over Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology; D059408:Pain Management; D010147:Pain Measurement; D029181:Spirituality; D013788:Thalamus / Q000503:physiopathology*
D002220:Carbamazepine