The prolonged pain relief produced by nerve block and acupuncture was compared in 83 patients with chronic pain who received both acupuncture and nerve block. There were striking similarities in the response to these two modalities. 87% of the patients who responded with prolonged pain relief after nerve block, also responded to acupuncture. Among the patients in whom the original pain returned as soon as the analgesic effect of local anesthetic wore off, 86% of the subjects failed to respond to acupuncture. It was postulated that both nerve block and acupuncture share the same therapeutic mechanisms.
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