Holistic Acupuncture approach to idiopathic refractory nausea, abdominal pain and bloating

Figure 1 VAS score for symptoms of nausea, abdominal pain and bloating at baseline for patients in either the mild or severe nausea groups. A significant difference was seen in the VAS score for nausea between the groups (P = 0.0002).

Figure 2 Effect of acupuncture on the symptoms of nausea (A), abdominal pain (B) and bloating (C) in the patients with mild or severe nausea. The response to each acupuncture treatment is shown.

Figure 3 Effect of acupuncture on the symptoms of bloating and pain. Response of patients with a baseline pre-treatment VAS of > 35 (moderate/severe) or < 35 (mild) are shown. The numbers of patients in each group are shown for each treatment session. A significant improvement was seen with acupuncture at the first treatment only for bloating although there was a significant decrease in pre-treatment bloating between the first and third treatment. Acupuncture improved pain with most treatments but the improvement was not sustained.