Acupuncture anesthesia is a recent and purely Chinese invention. The Thoughts of Chairman Mao state that ‘Chinese medicine and pharmacology is a great treasure house and efforts should be made to explore them and raise them to a higher level.’ This was a very important impetus to the development of this application of Palm Harbor Fertility acupuncture.

The Chinese look upon acupuncture anesthesia as a useful working method for local or regional anesthesia. They do not consider their methods of acupuncture anesthesia to be perfect, but they look upon it as a subject that is being evaluated and developed all the time. The majority of operative procedures in Chinese hospitals are done with local or regional anesthetics, and acupuncture anesthesia is probably the commonest form of regional anesthetic in use. Most hospitals that we visited seemed to be using acupuncture anesthesia for between 40 % and 60 % of their surgical procedures.

The use of acupuncture anesthesia is not confined to minor operations but includes major abdominal and cardio-thoracic surgery. Based on acupuncturists visit to China he saw more than forty operations with acupuncture as the anesthetic. There is no doubt that it was effective in a wide variety of operations. The Chinese often give figures of about 90% success rate, but his impression was that it was an acceptable form of anesthesia for nearly all the operations he saw.

The clinical advantages of acupuncture anesthesia are obvious. It is a safe and considerably less dangerous procedure than general anesthesia, it is safer for the old and disabled, postoperative recovery is far swifter, it is a very cheap and simple form of anesthesia, and the physiological functions of the body, such as the pulse rate and blood pressure, remain consistently stable during anesthesia. The main disadvantage is that very occasionally the anesthetic does not work and an alternative form of anesthesia may be required fairly swiftly.

The possibility that a small number of patients might experience some pain is probably unacceptable in the context of a Western medical system. Furthermore, there is no muscle relaxation in acupuncture anesthesia so it can be quite hard work to retract the abdominal muscles. Also, the Chinese have not found a solution to the discomfort that is occasionally caused by traction on the visceral contents.

Before acupuncture anesthesia the Chinese explain to the patients what is going to happen. Most people, including the Chinese, are very frightened before going into an operating theatre, especially if they are going to be awake. It is therefore important to have the confidence of the patient before embarking on any type of surgery involving local anesthesia. A premedication of barbiturates is usually given and the patient is wheeled to theatre. Body and ear points are selected on the same basis as for therapy and these are then stimulated electrically. In general low frequencies are used on the ear points and on distal body points (5-300Hz), and high frequencies are used on local points (3,000-l0,000Hz). When using the body points deqi is obtained first. When using ear points the Chinese insert the needle obliquely to be sure of hitting the point, and tape the needle in. Ear points will not be painful because there is not usually any local pain pre-operatively.

A period of induction is required whether ear or body points are used, and this is usually about twenty minutes. After inserting the needles the electrical stimulator is connected, set at the required frequency and maximum tolerable intensity, and left on throughout the operation. After the induction period anesthesia should be adequate for the operation. For particularly painful operative procedures, such as separating the periosteum from the bone, small amounts of local anesthetic are sometimes used. Very occasionally intravenous narcotics may be given if the operation is prolonged or the procedure is painful.