Acupuncture and analgesia: Clinical applications and main acupoints

Abstract

Pain is a protective response of the body to harmful stimulus, which results in undesirable effects if not controlled. Analgesia can be achieved with the use of different types of drugs. However, these drugs can cause adverse effects according to species and patient physical condition. Acupuncture has been proved to be an effective analgesic adjuvant, by the capacity to decrease the amount of drug used for pain control, rarely contra-indicated. The aim of this paper was to review the physiological effects of acupuncture on pain mechanisms, and demonstrate the main acupoints used for animal analgesia. The search was done in electronic search database using key words, in 2008.