Integrative Medicine in Pain Management in Sickle Cell Disease: Assessing the Clinical Efficacy and Neurobiological Impact With Acupuncture, 2.0
Indiana University
Summary
The proposed research is to determine the clinical efficacy and neurobiological mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia in patients with sickle cell disease.
Description
This study will help the investigators to learn whether acupuncture, which is a non-opioid alternative pain management approach, can help to manage pain in patients with sickle cell disease and the underlying mechanisms. Acupuncture involves inserting very fine needles through the skin at specific points on the body to different depths. Acupuncture may help relieve pain and it is used for a wide range of pain conditions. Participation in this study will include 14 study visits over around 6-8 weeks and 12 months follow-up visits. This is a randomized study, which means subjects are randomly as…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 14–80 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Any gender * 14-17 (Adolescents) and 18-80 (Adults) years old * Right-handed * Either outpatient or inpatient or status changing between each other * Have been diagnosed with SCD (includes but not limited to SS, SC or other type) and experiencing chronic pain in the past 6 months or vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) in the past 12 months. * Analgesic therapy prescribed by primary hematologists (or physicians for emergency or primary care) including pain-relieving medications (e.g. Morphine, coderin, Fentanyl, Oxycodone), Hydroxyurea (e.g. Droxia, Hydrea, Siklos), L-glutamine o…
Interventions
- Deviceneedling acupuncture
Acupuncture treatment will both main and supplementary acupoints. Main points include GB30; ST36; LI11- LI4, GB34-SP6; LR3, SP10, DU24, DU20, Yin Tang, Ear Shen Men which are chosen based on the unique clinical features of sickle pain. The remaining individualized acupoints will be selected and manipulated with manual acupuncture with appropriate needling techniques based on the individual "Syndrome" ("reinforce" or "reduce" or "Non reinforce or reduce") that is determined by TCM diagnosis.
- Devicelaser acupuncture
Laser acupuncture device VitaLaser 650 (Lhasa OMS, Weymouth, MA or similar) will be positioned 1-2cm over all of the same acupoints used in verum acupuncture treatment above. No palpation is administered prior to positioning the device and there is no physical contact between device and skin.
Location
- Indiana University School of MedicineIndianapolis, Indiana