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Preliminary Results Related to the
Principle and Application of Drug
Galvano-Acupuncture
Chen Fu1, Barbara Oakley2,
Shudong Li3, Wenlei Zhao4
1Science
of Medicine Research Institute, Kaifung, Henan, China
2School of Engineering and Computer Science, Oakland University,
Rochester, MI 48309
3The Third Technical Secondary School of Kaifeng, Henan, China
4Jiaotong University, Dalian, Liaoning, China
Abstract
Drug galvano-acupuncture is a new medical therapy
that has been developed and refined over thirty-one
years of research and clinical practice. It uses a
combination of modern technology, traditional
acupuncture, herbal medicine, and massage therapy
techniques. The therapy works by inducing an
electric field at the surface of the skin that allows
various medications to penetrate the skin’s surface.
The interacting combination of medication, along with
electrical and mechanical stimulation, appears to
quickly produce healing effects with no side effects.
This method has been broadly used with what appear
to be positive effects on a number of different
conditions, including neuralgia, asthma, and stroke.
Background
Drug galvanoacupuncture has been developed over thirty-one
years of research and clinical practice at the Science of
Medicine Research Institute in Kaifeng, Henan Province, China.
In this technique, different medical conditions are treated with a
variety of traditional Chinese medications while percussing the
patient’s skin with a specially designed electrode that allows the
medication to more easily penetrate the skin’s surface.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, this technique is felt
to adjust vital energy and the blood, remove obstruction to the
meridians, and eliminate inflammation. This in turn helps tissue
to recover, and can even affect the function of the brain cortex
through its nerve connections to various points near the surface
of the body.
The effects on the microcirculation and metabolism produced by
this new treatment modality appear not only to ameliorate the
patient’s symptoms, but also somehow to frequently eliminate
the root cause of the patient’s disease.
How the treatment is conducted
The treatment is carried out by using a specially designed
positively and negatively charged electrode to simultaneously
repel and push drugs (Chinese herbal medications) into a
human body through the skin.
Various electrical wave-form types and frequencies are used,
along with mechanical percussion—the electrodes continuously
tap the surface of the skin.
It should be noted that this therapy does not use needles to
penetrate the skin, and is therefore far safer than many other
techniques as far as concern related to transmissible diseases.
It also has minimal associated pain and no discernable side
effects.
Use of the technique in clinical practice
Dr. Fu, on the left, is holding the small, thin electrode device
that is tapping a gauze bandage soaked with Chinese
traditional medicine.
Clinical Application
The patient is treated while either lying or sitting. The
appropriate Chinese herbal tincture for the disease is
prepared. A gauze bandage is soaked in the tincture,
and the bandage is then applied to patient’s skin.
Next, the electrode is activated and rapidly tapped,
using a spring mechanism, against the skin. This
applies the appropriate mechanical and electric
stimulation to the patient.
For most patients, treatment is taken once per day for
thirty to sixty minutes, with a course of treatments
lasting ten days.
If symptoms still remain, another course of treatments
is taken after three to five-day rest.
Information related to success rate
In 1993 alone (a year for which complete statistics
were kept), the first author, Dr. Fu, treated and
evaluated 620 patients with drug galvanoacupuncture, including 330 men and 290 women,
with ages ranging from ten months to 96 years. Using
as an evaluation standard asymptomatic and full
function as success, having progress in symptom or
function as improvement and no progress as failure,
she found an overall success rate of 72.68%,
improvement rate of 26.84%, and failure rate of
0.48%.
Possible areas of application
The method has been applied to a number of
conditions. An abbreviated listing follows—the reader
might keep in mind that the treatment includes a
broad variety of Chinese herbal medications, so that
the possibilities for treatment are very broad.
Bearing these caveats in mind, over the past thirty
years, drug galvano-acupuncture at the Science of
Medicine Research Institute in Kaifeng appears to
have alleviated symptoms related to hypertension,
hypotension, gastroenteritis, amenorrhea, diarrhea,
neuralgia, Bell’s paralysis, facial spasms, headache,
epilepsy, stroke, alopecia, ankylosing spondylitis, and
rheumatoid arthritis, among others.
Appropriate notes of caution
Naturally, some of those successes and
improvements in patients may have been due to the
natural course of the syndrome.
Additionally, the success or improvement is as
reported by the patient and discerned by the
physician (insofar as possible). Many of the patients
are poor and unable to afford re-imaging via x-rays or
CTs once the symptoms have remitted—indeed, once
the symptoms have disappeared, it is sometimes
difficult to find the patient to follow up.
Future research will involve examination and
comparison of pre- and post-therapy x-ray and CT
images.
Dr. Fu treats IEEE President-Elect Michael
Lightner as Barbara Oakley looks on.