Kill Your Chronic Pain

Last August we sent out a blog to let you know about a significant shift in policy by NICE, the organisation that approves treatments for the NHS, in which they stated:

“commonly used drugs for chronic primary pain have little or no evidence that they work and should not be prescribed. Instead, it recommended that people with chronic pain should be offered supervised exercise programmes, some types of psychological therapy, or acupuncture”.

Hidden within this statement was a second U turn on their attitude towards acupuncture, because at one time acupuncture was considered a gold standard by NICE for treating chronic lumbar pain, then they reversed this to the extent that acupuncture was put in the category of quackery. This new announcement has reversed opinion again as acupuncture is one of the recommended treatments for chronic pain.

NICE – We Ignored Them

Our clinic has world class therapists who have studied relentlessly to learn. Combine that with over 100 years of practical experience and you cannot ignore what you see with your own eyes, over and over and over again.

What we saw was that acupuncture worked.

So, when NICE did their first U turn, we ignored it (NICE has no jurisdiction over private clinics anyway) and carried on providing the very best treatment we could.

Our patients appreciated the help acupuncture gave them.

Opiate Crisis – It is Real and Prescribed

Now let us briefly focus on the Opiate crisis. Until COVID hit, the opiate crisis was the major health topic in the USA.  In the USA, most drug addicts have been created by dependence on prescription drugs. Think about that for a minute. They prescribed their drug crisis.

Now this situation is nothing new and it has not gone away while COVID has engulfed the world. It has been known for years that the prescription of some drugs, such as opiates, were ineffective with chronic pain and yet have been overprescribed to the extent that it has caused an opiate dependency crisis.

In the USA, because of their growing demand for non-opiate solutions to chronic pain, Nicky was asked by 30 radio stations across the USA to speak and advise on other methods for treating chronic pain.  In this she talked about the evidence of the inappropriateness of certain drugs on chronic pain and at the same time talked of the benefits and success she had seen when using acupuncture and even more so with dry needling.

Bear in mind this was 2 years before this problem was broadcast on the radio this week.

Dry Needling Is More Effective Than Acupuncture In Treating Chronic Pain

Lessons we have learnt from the above are that we need to be confident in our own skills and knowledge, and what we have seen with our own eyes. We should not be swayed by bureaucratic and perhaps political decisions where those do not match reality.

We should also recognise that due to constantly studying and practicing, we will always be way ahead of these types of announcements that evidently come out years down the track.

So, lets make a broad statement of our own.

Dry needling is far superior to acupuncture in treating chronic pain.

Let us justify this claim.

Nicky Snazell had a life experience as a child in which she saw the failure of western medicine to treat her mother’s many years of severe back pain. As a result, she made it a lifetime goal to constantly pursue treatments and approaches that gave better results.

She studied physiotherapy and acupuncture and provided both in her early years of treating but was frustrated by the results achieved with chronic pain. Then in the 1990’s she heard about a Professor Gunn, who had developed a western based needling technique, called Gunn IMS, which used an acupuncture needle but in a totally different way. Gunn used the needle as a microsurgical tool.

Nicky studied hard with many trips to Vancouver, where Professor Gunn was based, and reached not only the highest level, but was also awarded the first fellowship in the world by Professor Gunn. Simply put, other than Professor Gunn himself, there is no practitioner in the world more qualified than Nicky in Gunn IMS.

But what is more important is patient outcome and over more than 20 years, Nicky has consistently achieved significantly better results with Gunn IMS than with acupuncture.

In addition to Nicky’s observations and results, we now have Jon Hobbs as part of our team. Jon is Chairman of the AACP (Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists) and one of the world’s leading acupuncture trainers.

Jon joined us primarily to learn Gunn IMS from Nicky, so that he can add this to his teaching portfolio.  It is significant that Nicky is the only practitioner in the world that Jon allows to treat him.  What better recognition is there for the merits of Gunn IMS?

What This Means For You

There have been no NICE announcements about Gunn IMS (or dry needling as it is more commonly known). Nor should we expect one for a good few years.  Does this matter?

Well yes, in that many will only be swayed by national announcements. For those, maybe one day we will be able to provide more effective help.

But for those who want the best help with their chronic pain now and don’t want to wait for belated announcements, then Gunn IMS or dry needling, is available now and is well proven.

 

If you are suffering from chronic pain, call us now. We can help.

 

Call Now 01889 881488. Erica and Jean will be happy to help.