Patient: A 65-year-old Korean woman
Symptoms: The patient was diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis in the prior knee. This is a degenerative joint condition that causes pain and stiffness. She had previously asked for a doctor’s appointment and was treated with painkillers and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for this condition. She had previously received a steroid injection directly into her knee, but her pain remained.
After that, she began to feel bad stomach aches from the drug, so she stopped them completely.
What happened next: The woman decided to seek alternative treatments to relieve joint pain and started acupuncture treatment every week. She increased the frequency multiple times a week when the pain was particularly bad.
Her knees hurt so much that she later went to the hospital. An x-ray on her left knee revealed that the sinbone inside the joint thickened and stiffened. There was also bone growth called spurs in the simbone of the knee joint and the inner part of the thigh bone.
The doctors also found hundreds of spots on the x-rays around the knee joint, which turned out to be a small gold thread.
Diagnosis: Doctors learned that the thread was inserted as part of acupuncture treatment in women. These short infertility golden threads were intentionally left in the tissue to provide continuous stimulation.
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Treatment: The doctor did not report whether the gold thread was removed from the patient, but in previous cases the thread remained in place.
Leave the thread in place is not risk-free as it leads to cysts formed in past cases.
What makes the case unique is that gold thread acupuncture is commonly used to treat both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, doctors wrote in her case report. However, there is no evidence that practices work, suggesting that in some cases people can indirectly exacerbate arthritis by preventing appropriate and timely treatment.
In another case, for example, a 58-year-old Korean woman was undergoing acupuncture treatment for the ulnar in an attempt to relieve pain in rheumatoid arthritis in her wrist. The patient’s condition became particularly severe before she asked for a doctor’s appointment, in which case the doctor believed that her illness had progressed until now because she had not taken anti-rheumatic medications early enough and instead relied on an alternative medical approach.
Also, threads can migrate within the body, and fragments can damage adjacent tissues. For example, the gold thread inserted into the back of a 75-year-old Korean woman moved to the right lower limb for 10 years, causing cellulitis, a skin infection.
In a report on the knee, doctors noted that the gold thread inserted during acupuncture can make reading x-rays more difficult.
Others warn that these embedded gold chains will stop people from having MRIs because there is a risk that metals will move and damage arteries.
Therefore, physicians point out that providers should recognize potential risk factors associated with mold acupuncture. However, the fact that it is easily identified by x-rays allows you to track locations over time as needed.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical advice.
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