Using drugs like ibuprofen and steroids to relieve short-term health problems could increase the chances of developing chronic pain, new research suggests.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/11/short-term-use-of-ibuprofen-may-increase-chance-of-chronic-pain-study-suggests

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British researchers looked at studies of 10 common orthopedic operations, including surgeries of the knee, hip, shoulder, spine and wrist. They found good evidence of the superiority of surgery over other treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome and total knee replacement.  For six other common surgeries, randomized trials found little advantage over interventions like exercise, weight management, physical therapy and drug treatment. The researchers found no controlled trials that had compared h...
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The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published support for the use of both traditional Chinese and Western acupuncture for chronic primary pain.  Chronic primary pain is defined by NICE as pain for which no underlying condition adequately accounts for the pain or its impact. 

In November 2016, NICE did not support acupuncture for the treatment of low back pain.  Their view was that there was no evidence that it was better than sham treatment. (https://www.nice.org.uk/news/...
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Acupuncture is recommended as an option for some people with chronic primary pain, provided it is delivered within certain, clearly defined parameters.
https://www.nice.org.uk/news/article/commonly-used-treatments-for-chronic-pain-can-do-more-harm-than-good-and-should-not-be-used-says-nice-in-draft-guidance

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76-year-old Iris suffered from a pain in her coccyx for over 20 years. It all started after a fall. The pain was mainly felt in sitting position and sometimes spread to her right buttock. Recently it got worse and even hurt in the night. Following a friend's advice, she came to see me for acupuncture. On physical exam, her lower back and right buttock were tight and tender. So I used local points for electro-acupuncture. On the second visit she said her coccyx had been pain free but the right...
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25-year-old Beth suffered from a bad pain in her coccyx for 6 months. The pain came every month for a few days and mainly at night time. It was so intense and pain killers didn't help at all. When Beth described the symptom to me, I suspected it was something to do with her menstrual cycle. But I was told that she'd had a coil put in 2 years ago and had no periods since then. On physical examination, I found some sensitive points around her sacrum area and chose two of them for acupuncture. M...
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Controlled studies of acupuncture in pediatric patients have shown its usefulness in managing nausea after surgical removal of tonsils and adenoids and following eye surgery to correct strabismus. It has also been shown to help reduce chronic headache pain in children. Just how acupuncture works is not well understood, but it may stimulate the release of neurotransmitters such as endorphins and serotonin or otherwise inhibit pain transmission.

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/04/113966/acupunctur...
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Allan is a 68-year-old semi retired farmer. He complained of an 18 months history of worsening neck pain. The pain was going up to the back of his head and down to his shoulders. He also felt dizzy and couldn't control his balance when walking. The pain was really quite severe and he had to go and lie down to give his neck a rest on occasions. This was wearing him down and definitely interfering with his every day activities. He had tried lots of pain killers but not had obvious relief and al...

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76-year-old Mr Pearce had a fall in Feb 2012 when the weather was snowy. X-ray showed a crushed vertebra in his lower spine. He was having back pain all the time and had to take eight pain-killing tablets a day, but still didn't get relief. He limped into my clinic with a stick and said:”This pain is dreadful. I would do anything to get some relief.” I put four needles into his back and did some manipulation until he felt an electric sensation going down the legs, then used a machine to s...

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Yvonne first came to see me in 2006, when she was having a pain in her neck. The pain came without any known reason. It was excruciating and travelling down to her left arm. She couldn't move her head and couldn't sleep well either. This made the 47 year-old lady burst into tears when she was telling me the symptoms. According to what I found in the examination I reckoned it was a muscle spasm, and four points in her neck, shoulder and arm were selected for acupuncture. After half an hour's t...

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Mr Place is a retired bricklayer. For the last 10 years he had been suffering from a very embarrassing problem - a sharp pain in his anus when he was in sitting position. None of the doctors he had seen could explain why he had it, but I thought it could be related with the strenuous physical work he had done in the past. As he was getting older, the symptom seemed to be gradually getting worse and he also felt really cold easily. For the acupuncture treatment, I used a few points in his lowe...
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Many studies in recent years have shown that acupuncture is more effective than conventional treatments for lower back pain, though some researchers concluded that it's just a placebo effect - no more effective than sham acupuncture which doesn't penetrate the skin or places the needles in random points. I admit the existence of placebo effect, but the question is, to what extent it works? Can it work as well as real acupuncture does? In some studies, acupuncture was delivered for quite a lon...
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59 year-old Mrs Jackson came from Scotland. Her complaint was a stomach pain for 15 years. She often felt bloated in the stomach and belched a lot. The symptoms seemed had started after she took a lot of antibiotics for an infection many years ago. Her doctor said it was gastritis and prescribed various medications, but none of them could get rid of the symptoms completely. I gave her an electro-acupuncture treatment. The points I used were Zhong Wan in the abdomen, Liang Qiu in the legs, Ge ...

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43-year-old Rudy is a paramedic. He was limping when he walked into my clinic. A few weeks ago he started having a back pain after lifting patients. It was so bad that he couldn’t walk properly. As a medical professional, he had tried everything he could get - taking pain killers, having physiotherapy and even injections, but none of them worked. Feeling sick of it, he decided to come to the Lake District for a holiday. Wandering in the town centre of Penrith, he noticed my clinic and promp...

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