Auriculotherapy is a way of accessing the body’s healing and pain control reflexes using points in the ear. It is similar to acupuncture but uses points on the outer ear only.
Along with using needles, this alternative medicine approach can utilize a painless to mildly uncomfortable micro-current (ultra-low current) instrument, which not only treats active points but also detects them.
“This allows the doctor to be specific and precise, which is a huge advantage when working to improve health and relieve pain,” said Dr. Nathan K. Kaner, a chiropractor in Delray Beach, Florida, in an interview with Suite101 on November 8, 2008.
Ear Acupuncture Treatment Options
A typical auriculotherapy treatment lasts 15 to 30 minutes. With auricular acupuncture, four to six acupuncture needles are inserted and left in place for approximately 20 minutes.
In transcutaneous auricular electrical stimulation, each ear reflex point is first detected then stimulated for 10 to 30 seconds, requiring a total of 20 minutes for successively treating six to twelve points on each ear.
Length of Relief
After a treatment, a patient can experience an improving reduction in pain for several hours, but the benefits often begin to subside several days after the first treatment. With each successive treatment, the degree of pain relief progressively extends from several days to several weeks.
Types of Practitioners
Auriculotherapy is conducted by a variety of practitioners, including acupuncturists, biofeedback therapists, chiropractic doctors, dentists, medical doctors, naturopathic doctors, nurses, osteopathic doctors, physical therapists, psychotherapists, and reflexology therapists.
Common Auriculotherapy Applications
Auriculotherapy typically is used to relieve pain for a variety of problems, including back pain, neck pain, nausea, headaches, sinusitis, radiating pain to arms or legs, bronchitis, hypertension, cold and flu symptoms, and gastrointestinal disorders such as Crohn’s disease.
For many, auriculotherapy is also the physical treatment of choice for addictive behaviors including alcohol and street drug abuse, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and even gambling.
Quitting smoking in becoming an increasingly popular application. “Patients in some studies have gotten over 90% results in quitting cigarette smoking – one of the most difficult addictions to manage,” Dr. Kaner says.
Evolution of The Somatotopic Map
Auriculotherapy makes use of a somatotopic map, a chart which superimposes an upside down fetus over the auricle (outer portion) of the ear.
Although the first recorded use of of points in the ear for pain relief was in ancient Persia, Dr. Paul Nogier originated the somatoptopic map used today in the 1950s in Lyon, France.
In the 1960s, the Chinese did a large-scale study using acupuncture in the ear and proposed a similar though slightly different somatotopic map. It is a combination of these two charts which makes up the modern points used in most chiropractic offices.
Ear Acupuncture Only Recently Practiced in U.S.
Ear acupuncture has been practiced in Asia for over 2,000 years and auriculotherapy has been used in continental Europe for the past 50 years. But it only recently has been considered as a treatment option for pain and addiction by medical doctors in the United States.
In November 1997, the U.S National Institutes of Health gave conditional approval of the practice of acupuncture. They included an evaluation of those studies which supported the use of ear acupuncture for pain relief and addiction treatment.
