Bee Stings and Chronic Pain Disorder.

Chronic pain is a major problem of public health, and patients seek manifold forms of help to find relief. Here we present and discuss the case of a middle-aged woman suffering from mental disorders who treated her headache with the self-application of bee stings on her back.

Acupuncture-induced pain relief and the human brain's default mode network - an extended view of central effects of acupuncture analgesia.

As a complementary medical procedure, acupuncture has a significant impact on the treatment of acute and chronic pain. Though the physiological mechanisms behind this method are still unclear, acupuncture has been claimed to rely also on changes in the central nervous system. Recent functional imaging studies indicate that the so-called default mode network (DMN) which consists of cortical midline structures and lateral parietal regions plays an important role in these processes. This brief overview describes the effects of analgesic acupuncture on the DMN architecture. The stronger interplay between systems dedicated to endogenous analgesia (periaqueductal gray), affective processing (anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala), memory (hippocampus), and self-projective thinking (DMN) following this therapy supports the notion that acupuncture is a mind-body therapy which helps to reintegrate important neural dimensions of inner life and to establish psychophysical pain homeostasis.

Effects of verbal suggestion on coronary arteries: results of a randomized controlled experimental investigation during coronary angiography.

BACKGROUND: Decrease of chest pain perception under placebo conditions has been frequently observed. The aim of this study was to examine whether placebo-induced chest pain improvement could be the result of changes in coronary blood flow. We, therefore, performed an experiment to investigate whether a verbal suggestion (VS) integrated in a cardiologic procedure has an impact on diameters of coronary arteries. METHODS: A total of 30 chest pain patients with normal diagnostic angiograms were assigned to a VS or a control group (CG). Saline solution was administered intracoronarily to both groups. The VS group received a standardized VS, implying coronary vasodilation. The CG remained without VS. Coronary end points were the changes in percentage diameter stenosis, Minimal lumen diameter and reference diameter of the index coronary segment before and 60 seconds after the administration of saline. Furthermore, changes in hemodynamics, psychological distress, and chest pain perception were recorded. RESULTS: The VS led to coronary vasoconstriction in comparison with CG (change in mean percentage diameter stenosis ± SD 3.2% ± 6.3% vs -1.7% ± 6.8%, P = .062; change in mean minimal lumen diameter ± SD -0.18 ± 0.32 mm vs 0.06 ± 0.23 mm, P = .029, no relevant change in the reference diameter). At the same time, the degree of chest pain perception was significantly reduced in the VS group (-0.7 ± 1.3) compared with the CG (0.3 ± 1.3), P = .024. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study suggest that a VS results in a biological alteration within coronary arteries. Contrary to expectation, the VS led to vasoconstriction, whereas chest pain perception decreased.

Effects of functional relaxation and guided imagery on IgE in dust-mite allergic adult asthmatics: a randomized, controlled clinical trial.

Although relaxation and imagination techniques have repeatedly proven their effectiveness in asthma, nothing is known about the immunological effects of these complementary interventions. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the brief relaxation technique of functional relaxation (FR) with guided imagery (GI) on serum IgE in adult patients with dust mite allergic asthma in a randomized, controlled trial. Sixty-four patients were treated over a 4-week period and assessed at baseline, after treatment and after 4 months for follow-up. Due to its significant role in the pathophysiology of allergic asthma, the serum IgE was employed as outcome measure in this investigation. Participation in FR, GI, and FR/GI led to decreases in serum IgE (IU/mL) of -54.7 +/- 67.1, -49.5 +/- 93.4, and -28.4 +/- 93.9 compared with an increase of 27.7 +/- 43.2 in CI. Our study confirmed a positive and clinically relevant effect of FR and GI on total serum IgE levels.

Functional relaxation as complementary therapy in irritable bowel syndrome: a randomized, controlled clinical trial.

OBJECTIVES: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a frequently disabling and almost invariably distressing disease with a high overall prevalence. Numerous trials identified the importance of psychogenic and emotional etiological factors, and this is obvious in clinical practice. Although relaxation techniques are frequently recommended, there is still a lack of evidence for their efficacy in the management of IBS. This study therefore aims to determine the efficacy of functional relaxation (FR) in IBS. SUBJECTS: The subjects were 80 patients with IBS. INTERVENTIONS: Participants were randomly allocated either to FR or to enhanced medical care (EMC: treatment as usual plus two counseling interviews) as control intervention with 2 weekly sessions over the 5-week trial each. Thirty-nine (39) patients completed FR and 39 received EMC. OUTCOME MEASURES: An impairment-severity score (IS) was employed as the primary outcome parameter with assessment at baseline, after treatment, and again after 3-month follow-up. RESULTS: FR was significantly superior to EMC with a standardized effect size of 0.85. The achieved effects through FR remained stable in terms of psychic and bodily impairment after 3-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: The results of our trial suggest a positive effect of FR training on subjective functional impairment in the IS, if provided in addition to treatment as usual (TAU). There appears to be a clinically relevant long-term benefit of FR as a nonpharmacological and complementary therapy approach in IBS.