Zhen Ci Yan Jiu. 1991 ; 16(1): 73-5, 60.

[The thermographic observation of the relationship between the retention of acupuncture needles and the effect of nose temperatures]

Zhang D, Gao H, Wei Z, Wen B.

Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing.

This is an observation of the relationship between the retention of acupuncture needles and its effect on nose temperature in seventy-four patients with facial nerve paralysis. The patients were divided into five groups according to the period of retention of needles: no retention, retention for ten, twenty, thirty and fourty minutes. Every group consisted twenty cases. The results showed that (a) the nose temperature lowered after acupuncture immediately; (b) then it rose and reached to the maximum at twenty minutes after acupuncture, then lowered again; (c) for the group of no retention and retention for ten and twenty minutes, the temperature rose again during thirty to fourty minutes after acupuncture, for the group of retention for thirty or fourty minutes, however, without these phenomena; (d) the general tendency was that the change of temperature was bigger but lasting for shorter period in the groups of retention for longer time than that in the groups of retention for shorter time. These results verified that some theories in ancient books about the retention of acupuncture needles are scientific.