Introduction
Many types of pain, acute or chronic, severe or moderate, may respond to acupuncture, even if pain has been present for years or decades. The longest standing pain that I have treated succesfully was a sciatica which had been present for 48 years.

Such varied conditions as arthritis, low back pain, sciatica, "trapped nerve", slipped disc, frozen shoulder and sacro-iliac joint problems may respond well to a combination of manipulation and acupuncture, as do many acute and chronic sports injuries. The pain of shingles, and pain after a stroke are well worth trying acupuncture with.

A survey of patients with long standing pain which had not been helped by other therapies demonstrated how helpful acupuncture was (Acupuncture in Medicine (1998) Nov; (16) ;103-4). This study showed that

• 95% of patients with chronic head, neck, or arm pain
• 85% with migraine or facial pain and
• 63% with low back pain, obtained good symptom relief with acupuncture .

Different labels
Pain may be described in many different ways and may have different labels attached to it. For instance pain in the shoulder may be diagnosed as due to frozen shoulder, rotator cuff syndrome, arthritis, capsulitis, bursitis, tendinitis or myofascial pain or a trapped nerve.  These may be different interpretations of the same underlying problem but all of these may still respond successfully to manipulation or to acupuncture or nNEAP.

Arthritis
Patients with arthritis often get little relief from conventional therapy and are frequently told "you'll have to learn to live with it".  Osteoarthritis usually responds well to acupuncture or nNEAP, and rheumatoid arthritis frequently does so. 

In Denmark, 100 patients with severe arthritis of the knee who were all waiting for knee replacement operations were given a course of acupuncture.  80% of them found that their pain was better, and 50% were so much better that they did not need the operation (Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica (1992) 36:519-25).

Cancer pain
Acupuncture can treat pain associated with cancer (although it will not treat the underlying disease) and is now widely used at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, the country’s leading cancer hospital (Acupuncture in Medicine (1990) Nov:8,38-9). Some of the other distressing symptoms and side effects associated with cancer and with chemotherapy or radiotherapy, such as nausea and sickness, gut and bladder disturbances (diarrhoea, pain, bloating, irritative bladder) can be helped by acupuncture and I have trained with one of the leading consultants in this field at the Royal Marsden.