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Published on: August 4, 2023
Umbilical needling therapy for neck pain during pregnancy: A case report
Lifang Zheng1, Shana Yao2, Yabei Jin1
1Acupuncture and Moxibustion Department, Zhejiang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
Rationale:
Neck pain during pregnancy is a common disease during pregnancy. It is urgent to find a safe and effective method without side effects. Acupuncture therapy including umbilical needling has been widely used in many diseases. But there is no report in such cases.
Patient Concerns:
We report a case of umbilical needling therapy for neck pain during pregnancy and explore its possible mechanism of action. A 35-year-old Chinese woman was pregnant for more than 7 months and had neck pain for 1 week.
Diagnoses:
Neck pain was diagnosed in Western medicine, and neck arthralgia in traditional Chinese medicine. The syndrome differentiation was wind-cold arthralgia.
Interventions:
One patient with neck pain during pregnancy was treated with umbilical needling. According to the 12 branches and the 8 trigrams in the umbilicus, the umbilical needling Zhuque 3 acupuncture and di Tiantai guayi acupuncture were used to treat neck pain during pregnancy. The clinical improvement was evaluated by the changes in clinical symptoms and signs and the improvement rate of the Visual Analogue Scale score.
Outcomes:
After 7 times umbilical needling treatments, the improvement rate of neck pain symptoms and Visual Analogue Scale score of pregnant women reached 100%.
Lessons:
These results show that umbilical needling therapy can effectively improve the clinical symptoms of neck pain during pregnancy without affecting the fetus. Umbilical needling in neck pain treatment during pregnancy should be further investigated.
