It is convenient for you to know all about auriculotherapy, a technique discovered by a French neurologist named Paul Nogier in 1954 who, during his investigations, realized that the pavilion of the ears was sensitive in many points or areas when there were pains in several parts of the body. This is how he put into practice the stimulation of these points in the earlobes by acupuncture needles, being able to achieve pain relief by taking advantage of the connection of these areas with the painful areas, which has worked over time to improve many conditions of the body.
This is how, from that moment on, some doctors and researchers of acupuncture of Nanking Military Hospital located in China were interested in the findings of Paul Nogier, so they decided to travel to France in order to analyse his discoveries, thus developing the discipline that is called “auriculo-medicine and is currently practiced worldwide, especially in China, the United States and Europe.
An interesting detail of the discoveries of Dr Nogier is that when making a map with the pain points of the organism, this formed an inverted fetus, which caught his attention, and that is how the appendix of traditional acupuncture was born, as auriculotherapy is, which has become an independent discipline or practice during the last sixty years based on the development of a map of the human body, which is superimposed on the contour of the ear; so when the stimulation of a certain point on the map is carried out, the organ associated with that point would be stimulated.
One of the benefits of auriculotherapy is that it helps to lose weight; therefore, it has been included in various programs aimed at reducing body mass because its application exerts an important influence on the points that are associated with stress and anxiety, as well as on the appetite control points that are located in the ears; the reason why small magnetized spheres or seeds that are fixed with medical tape are used over a period of several days, achieving important results which may vary from one person to another.
In the case of certain body aches, some health institutions have suggested that the effectiveness of auriculotherapy may be mainly due to the fact that with its application some chemical substances that are capable of relieving pain are activated, controlling certain conditions of the body and regulating blood flow and blood pressure.
In this context, there is a study conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina in the United States, where it was concluded that auriculotherapy could help patients to manage pain intensity, citing that it is an alternative therapy that has no adverse effects on the body and it is also effective for severe pain, significantly reducing the consumption of analgesics.
Likewise, at the Gustave Roussy Institute located in France, an investigation was conducted and whose results led to the recommendation of auriculotherapy for the management of chronic pain in patients suffering from cancer, presenting evidence that the nervous areas of the body are represented in the ear cavities through a connection with a system of nerve endings, which contains a kind of station that is responsible for repeating or transmitting all the sensory information of the human organism.
Following the benefits of auriculotherapy, it is convenient to cite a study that was published by the Magazine of the Council of Family Medicine of the United States, whose population studied was made up of retired military personnel in which was concluded that when applying auriculotherapy in people addicted to cigarettes for a period longer than five weeks, positive results can be achieved to quit smoking.
Also, studies have shown that auriculotherapy helps to reduce stress, and this was demonstrated by students of the Nursing School of the Portuguese Charity Hospital in San Pablo, Brazil who participated in an investigation in which was concluded that through this therapy stress was reduced by 45 percent of the cases studied, being able to observe the positive effect during the first eight sessions which managed to stay for the next 15 days.
In this study, it was also found that a series of nerve endings converge on the wrist, which can also reduce stress by applying some mechanism to act on them.
Finally, we should mention the research that was carried out in Japan and that was published in the Hong Kong Medical Magazine which was based on the study of a sample made up of elderly patients who frequently suffered from constipation. The results of this study led to the conclusion that, through the application of auriculotherapy, this condition could be significantly improved attenuating symptoms and improving the quality of life.
ALFA