America's North Shore Journal

Air Force Maj. Kirsten Vit­rikas, assigned to Com­bined Joint Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Task Force — Ara­bian Penin­sula in Balad, Iraq, inserts sev­eral nee­dles into the shoul­der of a Sol­dier. These nee­dles will be charged to intro­duce elec­tric­ity into the mus­cles in order to relieve pain.

Acupunc­ture, an ancient med­ical art dat­ing back to 2500 B.C., is begin­ning to work its way into mod­ern mil­i­tary medicine.

Air Force Maj. Kirsten Vit­rikas, a deputy sur­geon now assigned to the Com­bined Joint Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Task Force — Ara­bian Penin­sula, has recently started using acupunc­ture to treat a vari­ety of pain and ill­nesses within the mil­i­tary community.

Accord­ing to Chi­nese the­ory, pain and some ill­nesses are caused by the block­ing of a person’s energy. Acupunc­ture is used to move that energy past the block and alle­vi­ate the problem.

Mod­ern med­ical expla­na­tion states that insert­ing the nee­dles into the acupunc­ture points stim­u­lates the ner­vous sys­tem into releas­ing chem­i­cals in the body. When released, those chem­i­cals can affect how one expe­ri­ences pain or discomfort.

“The nee­dles have a charge because they are metal and can help push through the block,” explained Vit­rikas. “Some­times we can use small amounts of elec­tric­ity that can help alle­vi­ate the pain, too.”

How­ever, there are some skep­tics in the med­ical com­mu­nity. Doc­tors have tried to find con­crete results that show whether or not acupunc­ture works.

“Many peo­ple have dif­fi­culty under­stand­ing acupunc­ture," Vatrikas said. “They may be skep­ti­cal sim­ply because they don’t under­stand how it works.”

Although it may not work for every­one, results have been seen from her sessions.

“A few peo­ple that have been in don’t respond to the treat­ments, but most respond at least a lit­tle bit,” she said. “The treat­ment is very per­son­al­ized to the patient, so it can be hard to repli­cate in another case because it affects each per­son differently.”

Oth­ers have dif­fi­culty believ­ing in acupunc­ture because the basic con­cepts can be used for so many dif­fer­ent circumstances.

Accord­ing to an arti­cle in “Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Med­ical Acupunc­ture,” acupunc­ture is use­ful for a wide vari­ety of med­ical prob­lems such as: diges­tive, res­pi­ra­tory, neu­ro­log­i­cal, mus­cu­lar, uri­nary, men­strual and repro­duc­tive dis­or­ders. They can even help with ten­sion and stress relief. It has even been used in con­junc­tion with heat and aro­mather­apy to help with a breech-birth.

“It can even help you sleep bet­ter or just give you more energy,” she said.

When it comes to deal­ing with the treat­ment of pain, she has seen many patients set­ting appointments.

“Here, acupunc­ture is used pri­mar­ily for pain, but it can be used for a lot of dif­fer­ent things,” said Vit­rikas. “Lower back and neck pain are pretty com­mon though.”

Another ben­e­fit to acupunc­ture is the min­i­mal side effects. Because a patient is not using pre­scrip­tion or over-the-counter med­ica­tion, the risk of unin­tended ail­ments is low.

“Acupunc­ture saves peo­ple from the side effects of pain med­ica­tions,” she explained. “Many pain reliev­ers can cause things as seri­ous as ulcers or kid­ney prob­lems. We see some dizzi­ness or bruis­ing, but those are the most common.”

Aside from the low risk of side effects, acupunc­ture also offers a mon­e­tary ben­e­fit to the mil­i­tary community.

“Med­ica­tions are expen­sive,” said Vit­rikas. “It costs about $11 for a box of 100 nee­dles here. The stan­dard back treat­ment with acupunc­ture uses around 12 needles.”

Pur­chas­ing the elec­tronic stim­u­la­tor at $500 is more expen­sive, but after sev­eral treat­ments it makes it worth it, she said.

After all is said and done, acupunc­ture is not just gain­ing pop­u­lar­ity world-wide, but here in the mil­i­tary com­mu­nity, as well.

“More and more peo­ple are com­ing in,” explained Vit­rikas. “Word of mouth is really help­ing here.”

Army Pfc. Jason Ander­son, also assigned to CJSOTF-AP, had surgery on his foot before deploy­ment. Even after surgery, he con­tin­ued to expe­ri­ence pain and decided to try acupuncture.

“The small amount of pain that I went through was worth the relief,” he said. “I have always been curi­ous yet skep­ti­cal about it, but now I am a believer…it really worked.”

Vit­rikas remem­bers one of her patients at Scott Air Force Base who had many foot surgeries.

Accord­ing to her, the patient’s feet began to con­tract from the lay­ers of scar tis­sue that had devel­oped. With injec­tions and acupunc­ture, the pain began to sub­side and her feet even began to regain their flatness.

“I’m a big fan,” Vit­rikas said. “It’s a lit­tle mag­i­cal to see some­thing like that and you didn’t even touch the painful spot.”

DVIDS
Story by Sgt. Bran­don Pomrenke