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Acupuncture for PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)
Getting back in sync Acupuncture for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) can help with a range of unwanted symptoms that the syndrome can bring. PCOS symptoms are surprisingly common. They vary a lot from one woman to another, but you may experience:
Your menstrual cycle effectively gets 'stuck' in the first (follicular) half of the cycle. Ovarian follicles grow, creating the fluid-filled cysts, but none reaches the stage where it gets ahead of the others and releases an egg so that the cycle can come to its monthly conclusion.
PCOS is usually diagnosed from the presence of some or all of the symptoms above combined with an ultrasound scan showing your cysts and/or a blood test showing raised testosterone levels. Acupuncture aims to clear the obstructive effect of the cysts on your menstrual cycle, restoring a well-balanced monthly flow and reducing the other effects across your mind and body.
Treatment Generally with acupuncture the ideal is to start out with weekly treatments, and then to spread these out further apart once you're experiencing improvement in your symptoms. It's best to think in terms of at least 4-6 treatments. With problems affecting the monthly cycle, it can often take 2-3 months for the results to become fully clear, so a typical minimum number of treatments is often a little higher, for example 6-10, spread over 2-3 months, and the improvements are generally worth waiting for.
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Other conditions Acupuncture can help with a wide range of health problems, click below to find out more:
Detailed references (1) http://www.acupuncture-schools.us/national-institute-health-nih-acupuncture.cfm, referring to World Health Organisation (2002). Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trial, see http://apps.who.int/bookorders/anglais/detart1.jsp?sesslan=1&codlan=1&codcol=93&codcch=196 (2) Rampes (2001). The safety of acupuncture. British Medical Journal 2001;323(7311):467 (1 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7311.467, see http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/323/7311/467 (3) From the 'About Us' area of the Clinical Evidence BMJ website, page titled 'How much do we know', http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp. Extract at Oct 2009: "So what can Clinical Evidence tell us about the state of our current knowledge? What proportion of commonly used treatments are supported by good evidence, what proportion should not be used or used only with caution, and how big are the gaps in our knowledge? Of around 2500 treatments covered 13% are rated as beneficial, 23% likely to be beneficial, 8% as trade off between benefits and harms, 6% unlikely to be beneficial, 4% likely to be ineffective or harmful, and 46%, the largest proportion, as unknown effectiveness" © Jessica Kennedy 2005-09, all rights reserved |