Acupuncture can stop acute pain, according to a study from National Yang-Ming Medical College in Taiwan. The patients studied had renal colic, a severely painful condition. If you've passed a kidney stone, you probably had renal colic. So you know how painful it can be. In the study, some patients were given Avafortan, a painkiller, while others had acupuncture. The acupuncture patients got pain relief in 2.8 minutes whereas the Avafortan patients had relief in 7.5 minutes. Some Avafortan patients had paralytic ileus as a drug side effect. For any pain, whether acute (such as renal colic) or chronic (such as arthritic knees), acupuncture can be a very beneficial treatment - and it has no bad side effects.
