Role of bee Venom Acupuncture in improving pain and life quality in Egyptian Chronic Low Back Pain patients

Abstract

Chronic non-specific low back pain is considered to be the commonest medical symptom for which patients seek complementary and alternative medical treatment, including bee venom acupuncture. This study was done to detect the effect of bee venom acupuncture (BVA) for controlling of chronic low back pain (CLBP). We compared the effects of BVA on 40 patients with CLBP, pre-and post-treatment. The age of patient ranged from 38 to 65 with history of back pain more than 6 months. The curative effect was measured by scoring of visual analog scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), serum levels TNFα, IL1β, IL-6, and NF-KB as well as ESR before and after BVA treatment. The obtained results revealed that the application of BVA ameliorated the disturbances induced by CLBP, as it showed a significant improvement in VAS (65%) accompanied with a significant improvement in ODI (75.6%) in all patients. Moreover, BVA treatment resulted in a significant (p < 0.05) amelioration in serum level of TNFα (-14%), IL1β (-52%), IL-6 (-53%) and NFKB (-32.6%) and ESR (-39.8%). From the mentioned findings, it could be concluded that BVA performed an improvement in CLBP patients, regarding pain intensity, disability and quality of life supported with improvement in serum levels of TNFα, IL1β, IL-6 and NF-κB and ESR.