Postoperative Pain

Presentation Slides

Chinese Medicine Research Hub

Acupuncture is a low-risk method that has the potential to enhance perioperative analgesia, decrease opioid requirement, and reduce unwanted side effects of anesthesia, surgery, and opioid administration such as nausea/vomiting.

2022 Current Pain and Headache Reports Acupuncture and Postoperative Pain Reduction
Shah S, Godhardt L, Spofford C

Chinese Medicine Research Hub

Systematic Review

Auricular acupressure combined with acupuncture showed the highest effectiveness in reducing post-hemorrhoidectomy pain.

2020 European Journal of Integrative Medicine Acupuncture and related techniques for postoperative pain after hemorrhoidectomy: A systematic review and network meta-analysis
Qin D, Zhang AM, Chen M, Tang TC, Du YJ, Zheng H

Chinese Medicine Research Hub

Systematic Review

Certain modes of acupuncture improved postoperative pain on the first day after surgery and reduced opioid use. Our findings support the use of acupuncture as adjuvant therapy in treating postoperative pain.

2016 PLOS One The Efficacy of Acupuncture in Post-Operative Pain Management: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Wu M-S, Chen K-H, Chen I-F, Huang SK, Tzeng P-C, Yeh M-L, et al.

Chinese Medicine Research Hub

Systematic Review

Administering honey postoperatively can significantly lessen pain and foster improved wound healing following tonsillectomy.

2014 European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology The efficacy of honey for ameliorating pain after tonsillectomy: a meta-analysis
Hwang SH, Song JN, Jeong YM, Lee YJ, Kang JM

Executive Summary

Write an executive summary in the form of a blog article on the topic of "Research into Chinese medicine treatment for Postoperative Pain" summarising the research below and using language that can be easily understood by patients and avoiding medical jargon using a professional and caring tone of voice.

Write an executive summary in the form of a blog article on the topic of "Researched Chinese medicine treatments for Postoperative Pain" summarising the research below in an objective and easy to understand way, and using language that can be easily understood by patients. Group the article into Chinese medicine treatments first, followed by nutrition and other treatments. Avoid using medical jargon and use a professional and caring tone of voice.

Write me a concise but easy to understand executive summary on the topic of "Chinese medicine treatments for Postoperative Pain" based on the following research that I will give you. Your summary should be 2 paragraphs long in Australian English spelling and include references to the studies.

A published in 2022 in the journal Current Pain and Headache Reports found that Acupuncture is a low-risk method that has the potential to enhance perioperative analgesia, decrease opioid requirement, and reduce unwanted side effects of anesthesia, surgery, and opioid administration such as nausea/vomiting. Patients undergoing abdominal, spine/neuro, and gynecologic pelvic surgery generally benefit from acupuncture. Out of the various acupuncture techniques, electroacupuncture, transcutaneous electric acupoint stimulation, and traditional total body acupuncture seem to be most promising as adjuncts to multimodal perioperative analgesia. Benefits include improved analgesia and/or reduced narcotic requirements, decrease in PONV, and shorter time to return of bowel function.

A Systematic Review published in 2020 in the journal European Journal of Integrative Medicine found that Auricular acupressure combined with acupuncture showed the highest effectiveness in reducing post-hemorrhoidectomy pain. A systematic review and network meta-analysis was used to identify the comparative efficiency of various acupuncture-related techniques for pain relief following hemorrhoidectomy. Searches were conducted across several databases, including MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Library Chinese biomedical database, and China journal full-text database, from January 1, 1996, to February 1, 2020. The search targeted randomized controlled trials assessing the effectiveness of acupuncture and related techniques. The Cochrane risk of bias instrument and GRADE were used to determine the quality of the included trials, and the data were processed using a random-effects model. The study analyzed 107 randomized controlled trials, assessing the relative effectiveness of 40 treatments technique and 48 randomized controlled trials were used to analyze a responder rate. The results showed that Auricular acupressure plus acupuncture, acupuncture, other acupuncture techniques and auricular acupressure were significantly more effective than usual care. Furthermore, auricular acupressure plus acupuncture emerged as the most effective treatment. An additional round of analysis that focused on pain intensity was carried out, using 72 of the original randomized controlled trials. This study found that offering eight treatments had a higher effectiveness compared to usual care, with auricular acupressure plus acupuncture emerging as the most potent relief method.

A Systematic Review published in 2016 in the journal PLOS One found that Certain modes of acupuncture improved postoperative pain on the first day after surgery and reduced opioid use. Our findings support the use of acupuncture as adjuvant therapy in treating postoperative pain. Our study found that acupuncture and related techniques one day following surgery significantly reduced postoperative pain and the use of opioids. Unlike Sun et al, we also performed subgroup analysis and found that conventional acupuncture and transcutaneous electric acupoint stimulation (TEAS) may be more efficacious than electroacupuncture as adjuvant therapy to manage postoperative pain. Additional well designed studies are required to further explore the role of acupuncture and related methods in treating postoperative pain.

A Systematic Review published in 2014 in the journal European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology found that Administering honey postoperatively can significantly lessen pain and foster improved wound healing following tonsillectomy. The methodology for this research consisted of an in-depth systematic review, complemented by a meta-analysis, focused on the effectiveness of honey used as a treatment for postoperative pain and wound healing following tonsillectomy. Following the independent exploration of database records, including MEDLINE, SCOPUS, and Cochrane databases, by two authors, studies that compared postoperative oral administration of honey to placebo were pinpointed, with the outcomes of interest being pain and wound healing on post-operative days. Criteria for data extraction included baseline study characteristics, study quality, patient numbers in honey-treated and control groups, and outcomes of treatment. Across the selected 4 trials, a total of 264 patients provided sufficient data for conducting the meta-analysis. Discussion of the research findings revealed that the honey-treated group experienced a significant decrease in pain during postoperative day 1, in comparison to the placebo-treated group, as rated by patient-reported pain scores. The analgesic intake for the honey-treated group during the first five days after the operation was also markedly reduced compared to that of the placebo-treated group. Moreover, significantly enhanced wound healing was observed two weeks post-operation for the patients treated with honey compared to those given a placebo.

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