Ear Acupuncture

Ever wondered about how ear acupuncture works?

Ear acupuncture can be tracked back many thousands of years:

• As early as 475-221 BCE, the healing power of the auricle is included in the Nei Jing, an ancient text.
• Evidence suggests that it was used in various forms in many parts of the world including ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece.  Sharpened stones or bamboo were used to stimulate points on the ear, and were found to help disease.  Stones were replaced by fish bones and then metal. 
• Egyptologist Alexandre Varille documented that women in ancient Egypt, who didn’t want more children, would have their outer ear pricked and cauterized. 
• Gold earrings were worn by Mediterranean sailors because it was thought to improve vision. 
• Hippocrates reported that doctors would open the vein behind the ear to help relieve impotence.  
• The Greek physician Galen reported that bloodletting the veins behind the ear was used as treatment of sciatica.  After the fall of Rome, records were preserved by Middle Eastern Islamic cultures.

Chinese Roots

Ear acupuncture has been traced back to 281 CE in China for the treatment of many diseases. By 1888, physician Zheng Zhen said that the posterior part of the external ear can be divided into five regions.  Massaging the ear lobe was used to treat common colds and needling the ear rim was said to expel external pathogenic factors like wind and good for back aches.  Treatment of the antihelix and antitragus were used to treat headaches caused by wind-heat.  By the 1800s, acupuncture appears to have fallen out of favour.  After the Chinese military suffered defeat by the British Government in the Opium wars, confidence in Chinese Medicine faded.   The Chinese started to practise Western Medicine in hospitals as they were impressed by Western Science and biological discoveries, like antiseptic.   However, rural areas changed at a much slower rate, and so continued to use acupuncture as a mode of treatment.  In 1949 Chairman Mao reinvigorated the use of Ancient Chinese Medicine and encouraged its scientific development.

20^th Century

French neurologist, Dr Paul Nogier in the 1950s developed today’s system of ear acupuncture after seeing cauterisation scars in some of his patients.   These were the result of a lay practitioner, who, it is thought was taught these techniques by her father, who had travelled in China.  Areas of the outer ear had been cauterized for treatment of sciatica.  Dr Nogier tried it with his own patients, which worked even when Western medicine failed.  Once he learned acupuncture, he started to use acupuncture needles to avoid scarring his patients. He developed the ear map that we use today. It resembles an upside-down foetus, so that the whole body is accessible on the ear.  The head being the lobe and the vital organs located in the superior and inferior concha of the ear.  It encompasses the organs, nervous system and musculoskeletal system.  Science speculates that ear acupuncture works on the basis that each stem cell holds the information for the whole organism.  They create regional organisation centres representing different parts of the body by recruiting more cortex cells dedicated to specific areas of the body.  When reflex points on the ear are stimulated they relieve symptoms of distant pathology.

A Map of the Ear

The ear can also be used as a diagnostic tool. Everyone’s ear is different and unique to them, like as finger print.   Areas of the ear can be probed for tenderness as well as observing differences in the skin colour and vessels, which can be an indication of imbalance and the treatment required.  There are over 200 acupuncture points on the ear. Various ear acupuncture protocols are used in the treatment of drug and alcohol misuse, weight loss, fertility and other treatments.  Ear acupuncture can be incorporated with body acupuncture or alongside other holistic treatments

The most commonly used ear acupuncture protocol in the UK and around the world is NADA (National Acupuncture Detox Association).  This is a five-point protocol, where small, fine disposable needles are inserted into each ear. Dr Mike Smith developed this protocol in the Lincoln Recovery Centre, in New York City’s Bronx in the 1970s and was within the treatment setting of addictions.  He found that it eased symptoms of addiction and helped recipients feel calm. 

Ear Acupuncture today

NADA ear acupuncture is carried out in a group setting. This keeps costs low and also helps to develop a sense of community.  I have experience of this myself. For over a year, I administered the NADA protocol working from a centre at the MIND Charity and in my experience the people attending this clinic visited for a multitude of reasons.  Some people do this to relieve symptoms of mental health, while others to continue their drug and alcohol prevention programme, to aid relaxation and others to meditate as treatments are carried out in a quiet setting.  Elsewhere, it is used in 130 prisons in England.  The protocol has been used after disasters and in war zones; after earthquakes and hurricanes for treating shock along with other mental health issues.  It was used to treat firefighters and others affected after 9/11 attacks in America and more recently, here in the UK after the Grenfell fire.  NADA is a stand-alone treatment, but can also be used in combination with counselling and other support groups.  

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References:

• Auriculotherapy, Terry Oleson

• Nada GB resources

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2206232/

• Own study notes