Acupuncture and Peyronie’s Disease
Peyronie’s disease is a condition where fibrous scar tissue gets developed on the penis and makes it curved or shorten. It may cause pain in some cases and prevent men from having sex comfortably. However, it is a non-cancerous condition that does not cause any harm to the rest of the body and does not affect fertility. Read on to understand how acupuncture can help Peyronie’s disease.
Symptoms of Peyronie’s Disease
The signs and symptoms of Peyronies disease may develop gradually or might appear suddenly. Scar tissue, that may feel like a band of hard tissue or flat lumps, can be felt under the skin of the penis. Your penis may get curved downward or upward or get bent to one side. You might experience erection problems like erectile dysfunction (ED). The penis may get shortened as a result of this condition. It might be painful as well. Further, there could be other penile deformities like a narrow band around the shaft, and indentations. The pain during erections may improve with one or two years, but the penile shortening, scar tissue, and curvature tend to remain.
Causes and Risk Factors of Peyronie’s Disease
Even though the exact cause of Peyronie’s disease is completely understood, it is found that several factors may result in the condition. Repeated injury is a significant reason. The penis may get injured during athletic activity, sex, or trauma due to an accident. As the condition gets healed, scar tissue gets formed in a disorganized fashion. Your penis contains a sponge tube with many blood vessels, and each tube is encased in a sheath of elastic tissue. When you are sexually aroused, blood flow increases and your penis gets expanded, straightened and stiffened to an erection. If you have Peyronie’s disease, the area with scar tissue doesn’t stretch, and the penis gets disfigured or bent. Age is a risk factor, and predominantly, men in their 50s and 60s suffer from this condition. Heredity is also found to be a risk factor. Men with connective tissue disorders tend to have an increased risk of having this condition. Systematic inflammation from diabetes can make the condition worse.
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Acupuncture: Opt for a Natural Way for Peyronie’s Disease
Before we understand more about acupuncture and Peyronie’s disease, let’s look at what acupuncture is. The ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine tries to balance the life force in each person to attain wellbeing. Yin and yang are the two opposing forces, which are complementary and contradictory, and they cannot exist without each other. Together they make up the energy flow “qi” that passes through different meridians in your body. Any interruption to this flow can end in an ailment. The acupuncturist, by inserting thin metallic needles, can channel this energy and rectify the flaw. This will result in improving your overall health, both mental and physical.
Acupuncture to treat Dupuytrens contracture, Peyronie’s Disease and Ledhose Disease
TCM classifies the condition of Peyronie’s disease under the liver qi stagnation. The leaky gut can lead to phlegm accumulation, which translates into nodules and lumps. Acupuncture can clear up the phlegm and improve the blood circulation by correcting the root cause. An article from J. of Alter complement Med. 2007, explains the possible mechnizm by which acupuncture can help Dupuytren’s contracture, Peronie’s disease and Ldehose disease. When researchers applied manuel manipulation of acupuncture needles either in one direction or in both directions in a piece of back tissue of the mouse, the fibroblast, which produce the collagen in connective tissue, became larger. It seems that rotating acupuncture needles can modulate nerve activity and lead to cytoskeletal response in connective tissue.
This research can possibly explains why acupuncture help the injured tissue to heal and reduce the scar tissue so that people can regain the normal function much faster. Furthermore, this research indicated that the enlargement of fibroblast by acupuncture is dosage dependent, more frequent and stronger rotation of needles can lead to larger cell bodies of fibroblast. This research verified that acupuncture can change the structure of the connective tissue by modifying the size of fibroblast.