Whenever a patient asks about the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating post-operative pain, I think about Richard Nixon, the New York Times, and China. While it may seem random, we actually have Richard Nixon to thank for the widespread use of acupuncture in the United States, and it all began with an emergency surgery.
During his presidency, Nixon reached out to China, a country with whom the United States had frosty relations. He was planning to visit China, and his advance team went there to work out the details for the visit. A member of the press corps, James Reston, who wrote for the New York 
Times, went to China to cover the excitement surrounding the upcoming meeting. However, Reston came down with a case of appendicitis and had to have emergency surgery in Beijing. While he was recovering, Reston was given acupuncture for post-surgical pain, and later wrote about his experience in the New York Times. Reston’s article came to President Nixon’s attention, and as a result, the US began to sponsor doctors to visit China and learn about acupuncture and Chinese medicine.
Nixon’s initiative after his visit to China in 1971 is considered the event that opened the gates to the use of acupuncture in the United States. Doctors began to study acupuncture treatments, and Western scientists initiated studies on its effectiveness. Today, almost 50 years later, we’re confronted with a crisis caused by over prescribing and overuse of opioid medications, which claims over a hundred lives in the United States every day. In slowing the tide of this emergency, the role of acupuncture may be more important than ever.
A common starting point for opioid addiction is surgery. Ninety percent of patients receive opioids after surgery, and ten percent of those patients will use these drugs long term. However, as a way to reduce opioid use post-operatively, health care providers are looking for drug-free ways to control pain. In addition, the majority of patients want alternatives to opioids. One of those alternative options is the use of acupuncture.
In 2016, researchers conducted a review of studies on the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating post-operative pain. They concluded that patients who were treated with acupuncture post-operatively had significantly less pain and used less opioid analgesics on the first day after surgery than those who didn’t have acupuncture.
Scientists have determined that acupuncture is effective for treating pain in a number of ways. It increases the circulation of opioid-like neurotransmitters in your brain. Acupuncture decreases inflammation locally, where the needles have been placed. Additionally, it’s theorized that the slight traumas that the needles create close nerve gates which prevent pain sensations from traveling to the brain.
In the clinic, we see a number of patients who are recovering from surgery. In addition to dealing with pain, they are often seeking treatment to regain their energy, decrease inflammation, restore their range of motion, and speed the healing process in general. Through the use of acupuncture combined with electric stimulation, Chinese herbs, heat therapy, and dietary recommendation, we are able to develop a treatment plan that can effectively help them speed up the recovery process.