Electroacupuncture: An Effective Treatment of Some Visual Disorders

Abstract

Visual disorders present a special problem of treatment due to their frequent occurrence. The type and prevalence change according to the socioeconomic status of the country concerned and its health service development. Among these disorders, some involve the neurological system, such as: retinitis pigmentosa, Usher's Syndrome, premature retinopathy, amblyopia and congenital rubella. These diseases are considered to have a bad prognosis, with visual acuity loss leading to blindness, and the neurological damage has been considered irreversible. The scientific literature has little to say about the physiopathological mechanism of their degenerative processes. However metabolic changes seem to be implicated. Similar metabolic changes have been investigated in sensori-neural hearing loss, where a metabolic acidosis due to increased levels of lactic and pyruvic acids, together with enzyme disorders of the cytochrome-oxidase system have been reported. Taking as a working hypothesis that the same type of metabolic disorder exists in these visual disorders, an electroacupuncture therapy was designed that aimed to produce visual improvement through metabolic rebalance. Brief case histories are given of 44 patients having various visual disorders with neurological involvement who showed improvement with electroacupuncture. No side effects or adverse reactions were recorded following this treatment. The author proposes that electroacupuncture should be considered as a suitable alternative treatment for visual disorders with neurological involvement. Also, the previously accepted irreversibility of these disorders must be seriously questioned.