Saturday, April 23, 2011 As of 12:00 AM U.S. NEWS
The Wall Street Journal
Can Needles Soothe Wounded Warriors?
Military doctors in Afghanistan are using acupuncture to treat brain injuries, with promising results
Bryan Denton for the Wall Street Journal
Marine
Lance Cpl. Tristan Bell was injured in a jarring explosion that tore
apart his armored vehicle, slammed a heavy radio into the back of his
head and left him tortured by dizziness, insomnia, headaches and
nightmares.
He is recovering on a padded table at
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, beneath strings of soft, white Christmas
lights, with the dulcet notes of "Tao of Healing" playing on an iPod and
a forest of acupuncture needles sprouting from his head, ear, hands and
feet.
In a bit of battlefield improvisation,
the Navy is experimenting with acupuncture and soothing atmospherics to
treat Marines suffering from mild cases of traumatic brain injury,
commonly called concussions—the most prevalent wound of the Afghan war.
After hitting on the idea in late
November, Cmdr. Keith Stuessi used acupuncture, along with the music and
lights, to treat more than 20 patients suffering from mild brain
injuries.
All but two or three saw marked improvements, including easier
sleep, reduced anxiety and fewer headaches, he says. Cmdr. Earl Frantz,
who replaced Cmdr. Stuessi at Camp Leatherneck last month, has taken
charge of the acupuncture project and treated 28 more concussion
patients.
"I think a couple years down the road,
this will be standard care," predicts Cmdr. Stuessi, a sports-medicine
specialist turned acupuncture acolyte. "At some point you have to drink
the Kool-Aid, and I have drunk the Kool-Aid."
While researchers are still
investigating how exactly it works, studies have found that acupuncture
can help relieve pain, stress and a range of other conditions.
The
newest Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs clinical
guidelines recommend acupuncture as a supplementary therapy for
post-traumatic stress disorder, pain, anxiety and sleeplessness.
The VA is recruiting candidates for a
study of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating PTSD and traumatic
brain injury. Based on other studies of its benefits, "there is good
reason to believe that acupuncture will induce recovery across a number
of trauma spectrum dysfunctions in patients with TBI and PTSD, at low
cost and with little risk," the VA wrote.
In 2008, the Navy put Cmdr. Stuessi, a
44-year-old from Wales, Wis., and a handful of other doctors through a
300-hour acupuncture course.
When he came to Afghanistan in August to
create a clinic to treat concussions and minor physical injuries, the
commander brought his collapsible needling table.
He expected to use it
for the usual array of sprained ankles and sore backs.
Once at Camp Leatherneck, though,
Cmdr. Stuessi stumbled across an article about using acupuncture to
treat PTSD and realized many of the symptoms overlapped with those of
mild traumatic brain injury: insomnia, headache, memory deficit,
attention deficit, irritability and anxiety.
Lance Cpl. Bell, 22, from Billings,
Mont., was patrolling a ridgeline in mid-January when the Marines in his
vehicle spotted a half-buried bomb in the road ahead. They backed up
onto a second booby-trap, leaving five of the seven crewmen, including
Lance Cpl. Bell, unconscious. He took medicine, but the headaches and
insomnia grew relentless as the days passed. "If I took a nap, I'd have
nightmares and crazy dreams," he says. "I don't take naps."
He was waiting to see his regular
doctor when Cmdr. Stuessi invited him to watch another Marine get
acupuncture.
The lance corporal hates needles, but he was getting
desperate.
The back of his head throbbed so hard it made his eyes hurt.
"I thought, 'Something has to change here—I want to get back out there,'
" he recalls.
The night after his first session, he
slept eight hours, twice what he had managed before. Soon he was
returning eagerly every three days, when the benefits began to fade.
He
made a recent visit after a bad night, in which he woke up disoriented,
headed out for a smoke and hit his head on the bunk bed.
When Lance Cpl. Bell showed up at
Cmdr. Stuessi's plywood office in a green Marine Corps sweatshirt and
camouflage pants, the doctor turned off the overhead fluorescent light
and switched on a string of Christmas lights his wife had shipped him.
He shuffled his iPod from "Mack the Knife" to the flute notes of his
healing music.
He slipped one needle into the top of
the Marine's head, and more into his left ear and hands. As he worked,
he spoke softly of "chi," which he described as the rush of numbness or
warmth when the needle hits the spot, and "shen men," a point in the ear
connected to anxiety and stress. "This is Liver Three," he said,
sliding a needle into Lance Cpl. Bell's left foot and moving it until
the Marine felt the desired effect.
"Right there," murmured Lance Cpl. Bell, letting his eyelids fall closed.
A 2008 RAND Corp. study found that one
in five troops who serve in Iraq or Afghanistan suffers traumatic brain
injury, ranging from severe head wounds to more common concussions.
Standard treatment for the latter can involve painkillers, antianxiety
medication, sleeping pills, counseling and group therapy.
Acupuncture immediately appeared to
speed recovery, Cmdr. Stuessi says.
His first patient, unable to sleep
more than four hours a night despite two weeks of standard treatment,
put in 10 hours the night after his initial needling. Most other
patients have seen similar results.
Cmdr. Stuessi is unsure why acupuncture eases concussions. A few of Lance Cpl. Bell's buddies remain unconvinced.
Lance Cpl. Dominic Collins, who shared
a vehicle with Lance Cpl. Bell, was plagued by headaches after the
bombing. One night in February, he dreamed he was being mortared. He
rolled out of his bunk to take cover.
He declined the clinic's offer of
acupuncture. "It's kind of not my thing," he says. "I have tattoos, but
it's the idea of getting stuck" that puts him off.
One Marine tried jokingly to
discourage Cpl. Francisco Sanchez, who hit two mines in one day, from
using acupuncture by making him sit through an action movie in which the
hero stabs the villain with a needle in the back of the neck. The
villain's eyes bleed. Then he dies.
But word has spread around camp, and Marines with everything from job stress to snuff addiction now plead for acupuncture.
"All we can say is we've learned from
the Chinese on this," Cmdr. Stuessi says. "They've been doing this for a
couple thousand years."
Write to Michael M. Phillips at
michael.phillips@wsj.com
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