Acupuncture Technology 5000 Years Old or State of the Art?

In July and August 2001, almost 10 years ago, and 5 years after I graduated from the Helms course, I designed Battlefield Acupuncture. This occurred at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, CA, where I was the first full-time acupuncturist in the Armed Forces. I believed that all pain, for the most part, was mediated and processed by the central nervous system (CNS). Around late June–early July 2001, I visited David Alimi, MD, a neurologist and acupuncturist at the University of Paris, France. While in his clinic, I was introduced to the French, Sedatelec gold ASP (Aiguille Semi-Permanent) needle. He used these tiny needles in the ear for pain control that corresponded to neuro-anatomical pathways of body pain. This technique was too complicated for me because I was not a neurologist, but a radiation oncologist, and my memory of neuro-anatomy was mostly forgotten from my medical school days at the Faculte de Medecine, in Montpellier, France.

Returning back from my visit to Paris, I received a telephone call from Terry Oleson, PhD, with an invitation to visit the Laboratory of Z.H. Cho, PhD, at the University of California at Irvine (now the Director of the Neuroscience Institute in South Korea). The development of the positron-emission tomography scanner has been attributed to Professor Cho, and now, I was introduced to his functional magnetic resonance imaging pain research. In particular, I observed how structures such as the cinqulate gyrus and thalamus areas were actively engaged in pain until acupuncture needles were placed into analgesic points in the body. As a result, these structures, as well as others, in the CNS appeared to attenuate their activity. Immediately, my mind resonated with this information, and it seemed logical to engage the cinqulate gyrus and thalamus points in the ear for pain control with the gold ASP needles. For many other reasons, I added omega 2, Shen Men, and the zero point to my newly developed scheme. The very next day, I performed the technique on patients, and, to my astonished surprise their pain reduction was rapid and appreciable. I had no name for this newly designed treatment and when 9/11 occurred, I named the technique “Battlefield Acupuncture.” Over time, it spread in popularity throughout the armed forces and civilian acupuncturist community.

Ten years of using this Battlefield Acupuncture technology has passed, and, like a new version of a computer operating system, I now introduce another system that may compete favorably with the Battlefield Acupuncture for pain control. I call it “Niemtzow's Rapid Hand Laser Technique.” This technique takes advantage of the fact that the hand can be used as a microcosm of the entire human body as developed by Yu Tao Woo, OMD, PhD, and known as Korean Hand Acupuncture. It takes advantage of hand correspondence to the rest of the body for pain reduction. My system uses lasers of low and high photon outputs that are combined with a single optimal frequency. In many cases, this system appears to be faster than Battlefield Acupuncture. Durability of pain treatments needs to be researched further, and, eventually, clinical trials must be performed

The acupuncture of 5000 years ago remains well-established today. Whether it will remain competitive with our developments of Western Medicine is another discussion. Perhaps, as we increase our fundamental knowledge of acupuncture and its mechanisms,we will learn how to adopt our knowledge of Western medical science better to take advantage of this ancient system, which continues to surprise us with how modern it really is.