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Acupuncture for bladder weakness
Feeling fully in control again
Acupuncture for bladder weakness can be a big help for improving bladder strength and resilience. Some degree of bladder weakness is surprisingly common. You may urinate frequently, you may have feelings of urgency or weakness, or you may experience a little leak here and there.
Many people regularly wake to pee in the night time, but a healthy strong bladder should be able to make it through the night quite happily. Having your sleep interrupted in this way is of course tiring in itself, and may be gradually depleting your energy levels.
Or it may be that your bladder does not feel as strong as it might with running or other physical activities, when sneezing, coughing or laughing, or if you have to hold on for a while and there isn't a loo nearby. And many people find their bladders more pressing at times of stress such as pressurised work deadlines or other demanding situations. For some people their bladder had never felt fully robust, and it may be worsening with age. For others it may have weakened following trauma, surgery, childbirth, or repeated bladder and/or kidney infections.
Acupuncture doesn't use a 'one size fits all' approach, and Jessica will discuss your wider health with you in some detail to reach a fully individualised diagnosis and treatment plan.
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Research |
A 2003 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO)(1) found that recurrent lower urinary tract infections (ie repeated bladder infections) is one of the conditions "for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown but for which further proof is needed."
Meanwhile a review(2) by the British Medical Journal described acupuncture as "very safe" when practiced by an appropriately-qualified practitioner.
The modern evidence base for acupuncture is incomplete, and this is true for a great many areas of conventional medicine too. The Clinical Evidence website of the British Medical Journal tells us that of the 2,500 conventional medical treatments their databases cover, 46% are of unknown effectiveness (as at October 2009)(4).
Jessica continues to witness the benefits of acupuncture for many people in her work, utilising the knowledge and practice of Chinese medicine built up over thousands of years. She's happy that more and more modern scientific research is being done into acupuncture, helping to bring it to a wider audience.
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Contact Jessica
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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 2008-09, all rights reserved