"You're going to feel a little stick, now."

These are the words most of us never want to hear during a doctor's visit.

Needles!

All too often it seems health care involves needles ... small, medium and big ones, sucking out our blood to find out why we're sick or injecting our bodies with medicines to fight disease.

Unless of course those sharp items are deliberately and strategically placed to reduce pain. Now that's a completely different story ... and what several Naval Health Clinic Cherry Point (NHCCP) health care providers learned recently when they attended Battlefield Acupuncture certification training at NHCCP on Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina.

"Battlefield Acupuncture is another tool in our toolbox," said Capt. Necia Williams, an anesthesiologist assigned to MARSOC at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and course instructor. "Practitioners of this training are not full-scale acupuncturists. They are trained in one very specific method of acupuncture which is performed on five distinct areas of the ear."

Capt. Neal Heimer, NHCCP physician said, "After the initial training in Battlefield Acupuncture, I was slightly skeptical myself, but I found it to be an excellent way to reduce pain in a safe manner with minimal side effects."

Battlefield Acupuncture was developed after a 2010 Joint Task Force set out to evaluate pain management in the military and veteran health care systems. Too often wounded warriors were being prescribed high doses of narcotic pain medications leading to a myriad of other problems.

The Task Force report identified acupuncture as a "Tier 1 modality, signifying the Task Force's assessment that acupuncture is among the modalities most ready to implement, based on 'current accepted literature supporting efficacy, safety and widespread use or acceptability.'"

In other words, the Task Force signed off on the clinical use of acupuncture as a valid pain treatment.
But there was one problem: not enough practitioners were trained in acupuncture.

So the Acupuncture Certification Training Tier One Battlefield Acupuncture course was developed. In one day, health care practitioners can learn this limited acupuncture application. They can then apply for privileges and integrate Battlefield Acupuncture into their practice, helping to manage their patient's pain and reducing prescription medications.

But how does it work?

Acupuncture has been around for centuries and through the ages, acupuncturists discovered several areas of the body on which the rest of the anatomy can be mapped. The Chinese and French use the ear; the Japanese use the scalp and the Koreans use the hand.

Fast forward to 2001, and Air Force Col. Richard Niemtzow, a pioneer of modern medical acupuncture, learned about semi-permanent ear needles being used in France. After years of research, Niemtzow discovered five ear points, which when treated in sequence with semi-permanent needles, produced rapid, effective and often amazing pain relief. He named the procedure Battlefield Acupuncture because the method could be used in austere locations and only required access to the ears and ten needles.

Unlike the long needles most people associate with acupuncture, Battlefield Acupuncture needles are tiny gold needles that can stay in place for two to three days. And the results are often amazing. Eighty percent of patients will respond to Battlefield Acupuncture, the pain relief usually lasts for several days and subsequent treatments often provide longer relief of symptoms.

"A big advantage is we don't always use all five needles in one ear," Williams said. "After we place the first needle, the patient will walk around for a minute or two. We often see pain levels reduced after just one or two needles are placed. We can then place additional needles until the pain is at a tolerable level or gone altogether."

"This course shows Naval Health Clinic Cherry Point is committed to offering complementary medicine techniques in order to provide pain relief for our patients, hopefully limiting the use of narcotics or other medications which can have significant side effects or other medication interactions," Heimer concluded.

For more news from Naval Health Clinic Cherry Point , visit www.navy.mil/.