Pain management doctors write out more opioid prescriptions than any other medical field. Looking for alternatives, many practitioners promote complimentary alternative medicines (CAMS) like yoga and acupuncture to push back against the opioid epidemic.
“In the current opioid crisis era, many integrative medical therapies can be used as complements to mainstream medicine to address pain and reduce opioid abuse and addiction-related disease,” writes Yuan-Chi Lin, M.D., M.P.H., and her associates at Harvard Medical School.
In the published research, Lin and fellow researchers assessed and analyzed the current body of evidence on integrative medicine therapies as treatment approaches.
“Integrative medicine for pain can play a major role in reducing the frequency and amount of opioid usage,” the researchers write.
Generally speaking, acupuncture showed “strong positive evidence”. But other lines of research revealed that acupuncture also reduced dosing levels of opioids needed to manage pain post-surgery. In turn, this had a positive impact on opioid-related side effects.
The researchers acknowledge several important limitations on the body of research related to CAM usage for pain management. That’s because the studies reviewed varied regarding methods used and the types of pain studied.
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