Health experts and authorities have voiced concern over the rising menace of antibiotic resistance among patients suffering from urinary tract infection (UTI). These experts consider this resistance as one of the reasons why UTI, especially in women, as a disease has become persistent or acute.
In the Unites States alone, there are over 11 individuals with acute UTI, in spite of the fact that there has been an eightfold increase in the sale of over-the-counter antibiotics in this country.
Too much use of antibiotics for the treatment of UTI, according the medical experts and authorities is the reason why a growing number of UTI sufferers no longer get well with antibiotic drugs.
These days, doctors would permit their UTI patients to try out other forms of treatments if antibiotic resistance has become apparent. This permission, however, is given only after the doctor has first been consulted. One of the most recommended and safest forms of alternative treatments for antibiotic-resistant UTI in Bellingham is acupuncture.
Clinical tests and medical studies have been done to prove acupuncture is an effective natural treatment for UTI. The studies undertaken by medical scientists at Norway’s University of Bergen showed that acupuncture was very effective in curing the UTI of three quarters of the women who were treated in those studies.
The studies report that the acupuncture treatments were randomly applied on the women patients. The process involved the needling of acupoints on the lower extremities, on the back, or on the lower stomach, which followed TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) diagnostic protocols. For four weeks twice each week, acupuncture treatments were administered on the patients and any recurrence of any UTI incident after the acupuncture treatment was duly recorded for half a year.
The results were impressive. They showed that 73% of the women given acupuncture were cured of their UTI in contrast to only 52% of the women who were given different non-acupuncture treatments.
The researchers believed acupuncture’s success is due to the decrease in the levels of urine residue among the subjects. TCM experts explain the success in a different way. They attribute the success to vital energy in the body known as chi or qi that helped boost blood flow to the lower stomach.
What is Chi or Qi?
In TCM, the concept of “qi” is a reference to the basic elements that comprise the human body, which would include the life giving substances. Chi, therefore, may refer to any life sustaining substances like water and food or the very important or vital elements all over the body.
The findings of the above mentioned studies regarding the dwindling of the urine residue among the women who were treated with acupuncture, is very encouraging because this means that the treatment of antibiotic resistant UTIs is now possible with alternative forms of treatment. But as mentioned before, patients with antibiotic resistant UTI should first ask the permission of their doctors before resorting to acupuncture treatment for their problem.