Osteoreflectory treatment of alcohol abstinence syndrome and craving for alcohol in patients with alcoholism.

ABSTRACT

Osteoreflexotherapy is used alone as a treatment used for alcohol abstinence syndrome and for alcohol craving by intraosseal stimulation of the processus styloideus ulnae of the patient's left and right hands as well as the processus spinosus of the seventh cervical vertebra and the manubrium sterni osteoreceptors. This is done by intraosseal injection of 0.5 to 1.0 ml of 0.9% NaCl solution during a period of 3 to 5 seconds. Craving for alcohol and depressed mood, strongly manifested Alcohol Abstinence Syndrome (AAS) symptoms before osteoreflexotherapy, were reduced in a most convenient and fast manner under the influence of two sessions of osteoreceptive stimulation. The withdrawal symptoms caused by alcohol abstinence decreased markedly during the first two hours after the first osteoreflexotherapy treatment, continued to decrease in the next 24 hours and by the time the second osteoreflexotherapy session was given, the withdrawal symptoms completely disappeared in 72 hours. The most slowly and least reduced AAS symptoms were asthenia and disturbances of postular equilibrium. Based on clinical observations, it is speculated that osteoreceptive stimulations destroy ethanol dependent functional systems and restore the neurophysiological and neuromediatorial integration of the brain in alcoholismpatients. Primarily because of these two cited factors, the patient can be freed of the craving for alcohol for several years, and he or she also does not suffer from depression.