Acupuncture for vertigo focuses on restoring your balance.
Of all the conditions that people come to me with, vertigo seems like a really nasty one. A lot of people seem to imagine that it’s just about feeling dizzy in high places. But if you’re suffering from vertigo, you’ll know that it’s a much wider problem than that.
You can feel like the room is spinning around you, feel dizzy even when you’re sitting still with your eyes closed, and end up unsteady and nauseous. It’s clearly no fun at all.
Vertigo in Chinese Medicine
As in Western Medicine, vertigo can be driven by a range of diagnoses in Chinese Medicine. They have less familiar names, like ‘blood deficiency’ or ‘Liver fire’. But the goal of treatment is the same, to get your sense of balance back in balance!
Acupuncture aims to clear your head and ears of congestion, and get things flowing smoothly again.
Acupuncture for vertigo – the evidence base
At the moment, as for so many conditions, the research base for vertigo remains at the level of ‘more research is needed’. Here are some of the conclusions of a 2016 study. This was a systematic review of 12 randomised controlled trials, involving 993 patients with Meniere’s Disease:
“The quality of most eligible studies was very low which limited the value of the meta-analysis. Compared with western medicine comprehensive treatment (WMCT), the APS [acupuncture point stimulation] alone or in combination with WMCT had a significant positive effect in controlling vertigo … No adverse events were reported in the studies … More high-quality researches with larger sample size are urgently needed to assess the effectiveness and safety.
He J, Jiang L, Peng T, Xia M, Chen H. Acupuncture Points Stimulation for Meniere’s Disease/Syndrome: A Promising Therapeutic Approach
So, more studies are needed to draw firm conclusions about how effective acupuncture for vertigo can be.
Meanwhile, traditional acupuncture practice is not defined by modern scientific research. But it’s great to see lots of studies going on in this area.
Try acupuncture for vertigo
To see if acupuncture may be able to help your vertigo, just get in touch.
References
He J, Jiang L, Peng T, Xia M, Chen H. Acupuncture Points Stimulation for Meniere’s Disease/Syndrome: A Promising Therapeutic Approach. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2016;2016:6404197.