Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is an incurable condition that develops over time because of damage to the lungs. For many patients, this damage is the result of many years of cigarette smoking or exposure to other airborne irritants. Western medicine currently offers no cure, but the condition can generally be well managed with medications, pulmonary rehabilitation, oxygen therapy and surgery.

In addition to the standard treatments for COPD, you may be considering pursuing acupuncture or another holistic treatment to help manage your COPD and its symptoms , or perhaps your doctor has recommended that you try a complementary treatment. Dr. Umur Hatipoglu, director of the COPD Center at the Respiratory Institute at Cleveland Clinic, says he occasionally refers some of his patients for acupuncture treatments. “These are not but a handful, so I can’t tell you great results,” he says, but notes that at least one patient did experience some relief of breathlessness after visiting with an acupuncturist. He says there is some clinical data showing “salutary effects,” but he cautions that “we’re not talking about marked improvement to COPD by applying acupuncture. We’re talking some relief of shortness of breath.” Still, acupuncture and other TCM therapies have been practiced in the East for more than 2,500 years, and in recent years, some of these practices have gained wider mainstream acceptance in Western medical circles for helping alleviate symptoms of certain illnesses.

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The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reports that “TCM encompasses many different practices, including acupuncture, moxibustion (burning an herb above the skin to apply heat to acupuncture points), Chinese herbal medicine, tui na (Chinese therapeutic massage), dietary therapy and tai chi and qi gong (practices that combine specific movements or postures, coordinated breathing and mental focus).” There are different styles and techniques within TCM and different providers may offer different approaches to treating the same ailment.

The most popular form of TCM here in the U.S. is acupuncture. The 2007 National Health Interview Survey estimated that 3.1 million American adults used acupuncture in the previous year to address a range of conditions. Acupuncture has been shown to be helpful in treating chronic pain and migraines and has palliative applications for side effects of some cancer treatments.

Although there’s currently not much data about the effectiveness of acupuncture and Chinese medicine specifically for the treatment of COPD, adding these modalities to your treatment plan is safe, says Jamie Starkey, traditional Chinese medicine program manager and lead acupuncturist at the Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute, provided that you do not discontinue the other treatments your doctor has prescribed.

Starkey explains that “acupuncture is a small modality of TCM, and in the East, acupuncture and Chinese herbs are oftentimes used for COPD and other respiratory issues like asthma. However, here in the U.S., and especially at the Cleveland Clinic, everything we promote is evidence-based and so we look at what the data is showing.”

Currently, the scientific data pertaining to using acupuncture and other forms of TCM as a primary treatment option for COPD “are just not strong enough,” she says. But some patients are finding that acupuncture can offer them side benefits, including a better quality of life and alleviation of some symptoms associated with COPD when used in conjunction with their conventional medical treatment plan.

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The upside of using acupuncture as part of your approach to managing COPD is that “there is very little risk, and we do see some positives in some of these studies,” Starkey says. Anecdotally, she has treated many patients at the Cleveland Clinic who report sleeping better, experiencing a better mood and an alleviation of anxiety. Some patients also experience improvement in their 6-minute walking test — a standard test given to COPD patients to assess lung function — although how and why those improvements happen is still unclear. For addressing these quality-of-life issues, Starkey says acupuncture and Chinese herbal treatments “can be included. It’s not going to hurt and there could be a possibility of improvement ” in some symptoms. But “it’s not going to be better than drug therapy.”

If you do decide to incorporate acupuncture or a holistic treatment, ask your doctor for a recommendation or do some research to make sure you’re working with a licensed practitioner who has experience and is using sterile needles during acupuncture treatments. More hospitals are offering integrative services, so you may only need to go down the hall to meet with this person.

When you visit with an acupuncturist or Chinese medicine practitioner for the first time, he or she will likely conduct a lengthy intake interview to determine the source of the problem and how best to approach solving it. This will involve filling out some paperwork, talking through your symptoms and having a physical exam where the practitioner will take a look at your tongue, pulse and other markers of health. All of this is intended to pinpoint the exact problem, because with COPD, “even though it’s one Western diagnosis, for us [in Chinese medicine] there’s a whole handful of differential diagnoses,” says Melissa Dana, licensed acupuncturist, East Asian Medicine practitioner and owner of Black Pine Holistic Healing in Seattle. Depending on the style of Chinese medicine being practiced, COPD could be diagnosed in many different ways by looking at the underlying contributing factors. Some of these differential diagnoses could include lung dampness, spleen qi deficiency or phlegm stagnation. “Just because Western medicine says, ‘this is what it is,’ for us that doesn’t mean we would treat them all the same. That’s why consultation and individual treatment is so important, because we don’t treat everyone the same,” she says.

In addition to acupuncture, your Chinese medicine practitioner may recommend moxibustion, a controlled application of heat to the skin via burning of an Asian herb called moxa or mugwort. “Instead of decocting it — boiling it to make a tea [as is done with many other Chinese herbs] — moxa is burned and delivered through the skin. Usually with asthma or COPD, you can apply this to the back,” and the warming action and medicinal properties of the herb itself stimulate the movement of chi, or energy, in the patient’s body, Dana says.

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Starkey explains that the herb is burned, and “we can either do a direct application where it sits on a cylinder on the skin or we can place it right on the needle.” It can also be used indirectly, and the goal is to help balance energy in the organs. “In Chinese medicine,” Starkey says, “we’re looking at chi — the energy — of different organs. And with the moxa, we’re trying to support the chi. With COPD, we’re working to replace the energy of the lung, so the moxa is an application to reinforce and help support and nourish that aspect of the patient’s imbalance.”

Another aspect of TCM that could prove beneficial for some COPD patients is tai chi. The Lung Institute reports that tai chi is an ancient martial art that involves very slow movement and breathing techniques. Not totally dissimilar from yoga, tai chi could provide stress relief and a gentle way to exercise that does not induce as much breathlessness as some other types of physical activity. Talk with your doctor about whether incorporating tai chi or another Eastern practice into your treatment protocol makes sense.

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Can Acupuncture Help With COPD? originally appeared on usnews.com