Case Study – Back Pain Acupuncture

Mr. Wang was born in Boston, MA. As a teenager, he played tennis for his high school in Westwood. He later went on to Harvard Business School and started working for a finance company in Boston. At this job, he had to sit for more than 8 hours a day at his desk. Mr. Wang plays tennis during weekends to relieve his stress from work. After 20 years of working at the finance company, he developed lower back pain and shooting pain down to his lower leg. Consequently, he can no longer sit for more than two hours without discomfort. Mr. Wang went to Newton Wellesley Hospital for an examination and was diagnosed as having a herniated disk at the L4 and L5 levels and spinal stenosis. His recommended course of treatment is to have surgery. Instead, he stopped playing tennis, with the hope that his pain can be reduced by doing massage and chiropractic treatment.

Also Read: How Acupuncture works with Back Pain

His back pain improved slightly after massages and chiropractic treatments in downtown Boston but never went away. As soon as he started playing tennis again, his lower back pain and hip pain instantly flared up. He finally decided to get acupuncture treatments at Boston Chinese Acupuncture clinic in Needham. Initially, Mr. Wang came twice a week, and then he went to chiropractic treatments every other week right after his acupuncture treatment. After 12 sessions of acupuncture treatments, he changed to once per week acupuncture for another 12 sessions, then every two weeks for acupuncture for back pain. After a year of having treatments every week or every 2 weeks, he was able to start playing tennis again. Additionally, he can sit for longer periods of time without back pain. Mr. Wang started by playing tennis for an hour after his back pain got better in Dover tennis court. After another few months of acupuncture treatments, he was able to play tennis for two hours and his back pain is currently manageable as long as he keeps doing his stretching exercises and not sitting for too long.