subject: Argentinean Acupuncture [print this page] A mother answered when her son asked her a question. When he looked at the table beside her, he saw something quite impressive. There lay his mother's hearing aid. Considering a period of 15 years, the son realized how his mother no longer needed any mechanical help to hear him clearly.
On her neck just by the ears and on her jaw were four thin needles when this happened as the mother and son were in a cubicle of an acupuncture center. As she lay on the medical examining table, her face had a perplexed look. Nothing was the matter for the mother. Thinking that she had her aid on because no one raised their voices, they were mistaken as her aid was on the table.
Washington was where the center is located and so the duo went all the way from NY after seeing a story in the local paper about how acupuncture, a Chinese method of using fine needles in the body, is used to treat nerve deafness. Having a problem with deafness can be cured by acupuncture other than being a way to relieve pain.
Cases of nerve deafness are the only conditions where the word cure is used. Findings from the audiometer are available before and after treatment. From the hearing loss population there are 35 to 40 percent with nerve deafness and these people can be cured through the acupuncture method. No benefit can be gained from this by a person with hearing loss that is due to diseases or punctured ear drums.
One doctor responsible for the acupuncture treatments guards his patients against false claims about the procedure, his interest in the method grew when his family was exposed to it during a trip to Argentina. On the average, eight treatments would provide a 75 to 80 percent improvement. Older people experience lower levels of improvement. Often possible for 7 to 12 year olds is getting their full hearing abilities back. From eight months to a year, further acupuncture sessions may be needed as a booster.
While patients underwent their treatments, the US deputy undersecretary of labor for legislative affairs waited outside for his tenth treatment. He was a young Montanan who supplied the Administration not only with precise and unemotional reports about the chances for passage of legislation affecting the Labor Department but that pertaining to the mood of Congress as well. In his left ear is a loss of hearing due to a 1968 virus attack. From his doctors came the diagnosis of nerve deafness but they provided no kind of cure. All of the hearing aids he used were not that helpful.
Learning about the permanency of his condition, he adapted by practicing the use of his good ear shuffling people to speak on his right side. But the hearing loss was distressing in such activities as hunting and there was a nagging fear of deafness in the other ear. Learning about the acupuncture center was met with much speculation. When a cure appears to be that simple then there is room for doubt. Still he managed to try acupuncture out and the audiogram was able to inform him or the complete loss of hearing in his left ear.
The inserted needles drove him to suddenly back out of the treatment for he had a dread of needles to begin with. Next was the beeping of the audiogram machine. Regaining 70 percent of his hearing after nine treatments, he vows to keep getting treated as long as further improvement can be seen.
