More surgical "woo." Gynecological surgeons added this procedure to their repertoire

[pnwmom]

120. Maybe not. But then neither is acupuncture.

Acupuncture has been shown in many studies to relieve pain, and MD's across the country have successfully used it. The mechanism of action is unknown, but that's also true for many of the drugs they prescribe.

Just because something wasn't developed as a part of western medicine doesn't make it woo. Especially when it has now been studied by western researchers and adopted by western doctors.

http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/091012

NIH: National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine

For all pain types studied, the researchers found modest but statistically significant differences between acupuncture versus simulated acupuncture approaches (i.e., specific effects), and larger differences between acupuncture versus a no-acupuncture controls (i.e., non-specific effects). (In traditional acupuncture, needles are inserted at specific points on the body. Simulated acupuncture includes a variety of approaches which mimic this procedure; some approaches do not pierce the skin or use specific points on the body.) The sizes of the effects were generally similar across all pain conditions studied.

The authors noted that these findings suggest that the total effects of acupuncture, as experienced by patients in clinical practice, are clinically relevant. They also noted that their study provides the most robust evidence to date that acupuncture is more than just placebo and a reasonable referral option for patients with chronic pain.