Auriculotherapy, or auricular therapy, involves either manual or digital stimulation of the external ear to alleviate health conditions in other parts of the body.
In the 1950’s, a French neurologist, Dr. Paul Nogier, noticed that several of his patients had an unusual scar on a specific area of the ear. His patients informed him that the scar was for treatment of sciatica and that this treatment had given them relief within hours. After studying this phenomena, he began mapping other parts of the body. This research lead to the inverted fetus principle. This was the basis for his diligent work to advance this technique to what we know today.
Dr. Nogier noted that the ear is one of the few anatomical structures that is composed of tissue from each of the three tissue types in the developing embryo. He believed the ectodermal tissue (superficial), mesodermal tissue (middle) and endodermal tissue (deep) of the ear could be stimulated to affect the organs and systems that also formed from these same tissues. With over 120 points in the ear, this corresponds to just about everything one could imagine.
The World Health Organization announced in 1990 that auriculotherapy is “probably the most developed and best documented, scientifically, of all the ‘micro-systems’ of acupuncture and is the most practical and widely used.”
The external ear is considered a ‘microsystem’ of the body. Microsystems are like small images of the whole body, and the ear is a complete microsystem of the human body. All parts of the body are represented in an inverted pattern on the ear. There are other microsystems, but the ear has been shown through research to be the most effective microsystem. This is due to the type of tissue that makes up the ear and due to its direct connection to the nervous system, which controls every single cell and bodily function.
Auriculotherapy works by stimulating the central nervous system through the cranial nerves and spinal nerves on the external ear. This stimulation results in neurotransmitters being stimulated within the brain and spinal cord of the central nervous system. This stimulation of neurotransmitters modulates the pain and modulates nerve function beginning the healing process within the body to that organ or body part that is affected.
In manual auriculotherapy, the therapist uses their fingers to stimulate the external ear. Digital auriculotherapy is stimulation of the external ear for alleviating pain and dysfunction in other parts of the body using electricity, a microcurrent, as a means to treat auricular acupoints (acupuncture points on the ear). This therapy is noninvasive; there are no needles involved. There are over 200 auricular acupoints on each ear that represent all parts of the body and many functional areas of the body.
The small handheld wand used in treatments has two functions: it diagnoses by measuring the differences in skin conductivity in relation to the acupoint, and it is also used to treat the acupoint. The wand measures the positive and negative polarity (differential) of the acupoint and surrounding tissue. A large difference in polarity, either positive or negative, indicates of the presence of an injury, pathology or disease in that part of the body that corresponds to the acupoint. If the point is extremely negative or extremely positive, the machine will stimulate the ear point with electrical stimulation positively or negatively as needed; this is all done with the touch of a button.
Does digital auriculotherapy hurt?
For the most part, the procedure is painless. You may feel a tiny sensation in the ear where the point is being treated; this is usually for a second or two and then the sensation goes away. Because tenderness of ear points is one of the primary diagnostic features of auriculotherapy, soreness on the ear points stimulated can sometimes continue for up to an hour after the treatment.
What conditions does it treat?
There has been an increase in research in the field of auriculotherapy in the past decade. Auriculotherapy is good for both acute pain and for chronic degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia. Other conditions include diseases and dysfunctions of the gastrointestinal, respiratory, urinary, and cardiovascular systems. Auriculotherapy is very effective for treating addictions. In fact, auriculotherapy has a seventy five to eighty percent success rate treating patients for smoking or nicotine addiction. There are currently more than 150 indications for the application of auriculotherapy.
The World Health Organization also recognizes auriculotherapy as a treatment option for over 100 conditions, such as migraines, facial paralysis, tennis elbow, sciatica, peripheral neuropathy, arthritis, pain, allergies, hot flashes, dry mouth, and Meniere’s disease.
Are there any side effects?
The primary side effect of digital auriculotherapy is tenderness or inflammation to the skin of the ear itself. This is usually very rare. There are so side effects of manual auriculotherapy.
Both manual and digital auriculotherapy are contraindicated in clients that are in their first trimester of pregnancy and for those clients who have certain types of pacemakers or defibrillators.
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