Clinical Study On Idiopathic Tinnitus Treated With Balance Needling Combined With Conventional Acupuncture

ObjectiveIdiopathic tinnitus refers to subjective tinnitus caused by unexplained and non-organic diseases,which can be followed by anxiety,dysphoria,depression and other adverse psychological reactions.It can cause acute or chronic onset and affect the quality of life of patients to a certain extent.By observing and comparing the difference in the clinical efficacy on idiopathic tinnitus between balance needling plus conventional acupuncture and conventional acupuncture,this study evaluates the clinical application value of balance needling combined with conventional acupuncture in order to provide new treatment ideas and better treatment options for the treatment of idiopathic tinnitus by acupuncture.MethodThis study was conducted from January 2018 to January 2019,62 tinnitus Patients who met the criteria of inclusion and exclusion were selected from Guangdong Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.They were randomly divided into treatment group(balance needling combined with conventional acupuncture group)and control group(conventional acupuncture group),with 31 cases in each group.The treatment group was given conventional acupuncture and main points were Ermen(TE21),Tinggong(SI19),Tinghui(GB2),Yifeng(TE17),Zhongzhu(TE3),Xiaxi(GB43),Hegu(LI4)and Taichong(LR3).After the“Qi”arrived,applied the method of plain tonifying and relieving diarrhea.The needle lasted 30 minutes-During the needle retention,the deafness point was acupunctured,reaching the periosteum in depth,inserting the needle up and down three times.The needle was detained six times by rotating the needle body clockwise through the thumb and index finger,so as to quickly produce a sense of acid,numbness and pain.After that,the needle tip was retreated to the needle point counterclockwise,and the needle can be released.The two groups were treated once every other day,3 times a week,6 times/course,a total of 3 courses of treatment.The severity of tinnitus scale(TEQ),tinnitus disability scale(THI)and Hamilton anxiety scale(HAMA)were assessed before and after three courses of treatment respectively.Data were collected and analyzed by SPSS 20.0 software according to the criteria of efficacy evaluation.Results1.Baseline data:Before treatment,there was no significant difference in gender,age,TCM syndromes,tinnitus severity score,tinnitus severity grade ,tinnitus disability score and anxiety test score between the two groups(P>0.05).2.Comparing the severity of tinnitus:The intra-group comparison of the total scores of TEQ before and after treatment showed striking difference(P<0.01),suggesting that the severity of tinnitus in the two groups was significantly improved after treatment;the difference between the two groups before and after treatment showed significant difference(P<0.05).It can be entailed that the therapeutic effect of the treatment group had advantage over that of the control group in improving the severity of tinnitus.3.Comparing the degree of tinnitus disability:The intra-group comparison of the total scores of THI before and after treatment showed striking difference(P<0.01),suggesting that the degree of tinnitus disability in the two groups after treatment was significantly lower than that before treatment;the difference between the two groups before and after treatment showed significant difference(P<0.05),showing out that the therapeutic effect of the treatment group had advantage over that of the control group in reducing tinnitus disability.4.Anxiety:The intra-group comparison of the total scores of HAMA before and after treatment showed striking difference(P<0.01),suggesting that anxiety symptoms of both groups were improved significantly after treatment;the difference between the two groups before and after treatment showed significant difference(P<0.05),indicating that the treatment group had more advantages in improving anxiety symptoms.5.Clinical efficacy:After treatment,the total effective percentage was 89.66%in the treatment group and 80.00%in the matched group.According to Ridit test analysis,u=-2.243,P=0.029<0.05,the difference was statistically significant.It can be seen that both groups can receive better clinical efficacy in the treatment of idiopathic tinnitus,while the balance needling combined with conventional acupuncture has better efficacy in the treatment of this disease.6.Therapeutic effect of TCM syndromes:The treatment group and the control group have certain curative effect on tinnitus of various syndromes,and the curative effect of the treatment group is better than that of the control group.Therapeutic effect of treatment group was better than that of control group,especially for tinnitus of liver-fire disturbance type and phlegm-fire stagnation type.There was no significant change in effective rate of tinnitus of kidney essence deficiency type and qi-blood deficiency type compared with control group.In the control group,tinnitus of wind-heat invasion and Qi stagnation and blood stasis type had better curative effect,and in general,it was also better for empirical tinnitus.However,due to the insufficiency of samples included in this study,the above results showed no statistical significance by statistical test,and it is necessary to expand the sample size for further study.Conclusions1.Both the treatment group(balance needling combined with conventional acupuncture group)and the control group(conventional acupuncture group)can effectively treat idiopathic tinnitus.2.The treatment group was superior to the control group in improving the severity,disability and anxiety of tinnitus.3.This study shows that balance needling combined with conventional acupuncture is better than conventional acupuncture in the treatment of idiopathic tinnitus,and the method of this study is relatively simple,safe,effective and repeatable,which is worthy of clinical application.