An Overview of Acupuncture for Relieving Pelvic Pain

For individuals experiencing pelvic pain, can incorporating acupuncture help alleviate and reduce low back pain?

Introduction

In the musculoskeletal system, the upper and lower body portions have jobs to allow the host to be in motion. The lower body portions provide stability and maintain proper posture, which can help the surrounding muscles be strong and protect the vital organs. The skeletal joints in the body help ensure that the person’s body weight is evenly distributed. For the musculoskeletal system, the pelvic region in the lower body portion helps with stabilization and provides normal urinary function to the body. However, when normal and traumatic factors begin to affect the lower portions of the body, it can lead to pain-like issues that can cause some visceral referred pain to the lower back, and it can make many individuals think they are experiencing lower back pain, which is one of the symptoms associated with pelvic pain. When many individuals are experiencing pelvic pain associated with lower back pain, many will opt to seek treatment to reduce the pain-like symptoms and restore their body function. Today’s article looks at how pelvic pain is associated with low back pain and how treatments like acupuncture can help reduce pelvic pain associated with low back pain and provide relief. We speak with certified medical providers who incorporate our patients’ information to provide various treatments to ease low back pain correlated with pelvic pain. We also inform patients how non-surgical therapies like acupuncture can help reduce the effects of pelvic pain. We encourage our patients to ask intricated questions to our associated medical providers about the pain-like symptoms they are experiencing correlating with pelvic pain that is also causing issues in their lower backs. Dr. Alex Jimenez, D.C., utilizes this information as an academic service. Disclaimer.

How Pelvic Pain Is Associated With Low Back Pain?

Have you experienced excruciating pain from excessive sitting that is causing pain in your lower back or pelvic region? Do you feel stiffness in your lower back and pelvic region due to poor posture? Or are you experiencing intense cramping around your pelvic area? When many individuals are dealing with these pain-like issues, it is correlated with pelvic pain. Now, pelvic pain is a common, disabling, persistent pain that is associated with comorbidities that are multifactorial and are often centralized pain. (Dydyk & Gupta, 2023) At the same time, pelvic pain is a challenge to diagnose due to being multifactorial and sharing the numerous nerve roots that are spread out and intertwined with the lumbar region. To this point, this causes referred pain to the lower back and causes many individuals to think they are experiencing lower back pain when, in actuality, they are dealing with pelvic pain. This is due to the pelvic floor muscles becoming weak, which can cause many individuals to develop poor posture, leading to low back pain over time.

Additionally, when the pelvic region is misaligned due to repetitive motions that cause lower back pain, it can cause the surrounding muscles to be overstretched and loose around the sacroiliac joints. (Mutaguchi et al., 2022) When this happens, the surrounding muscles surrounding the hips and lower back may weaken, leading to anterior pelvic tilt and causing alterations to the lumbopelvic area. 

Since the lumbopelvic area is in the lower body portions, it can cause alterations to the body’s skeletal structure, leading to lower back pain. When an increasing number of individuals deal with spinal deformity, they will maintain a standing position while preventing their central gravity from moving forward by using their pelvic muscles to compensate for their weight. (Murata et al., 2023) When this happens, it causes the surrounding core muscles and back muscles to overstretch, which then causes the accessory muscles to produce more energy and do the primary muscles’ jobs. This causes urinary and muscle issues that cause tomato-visceral referred pain in the musculoskeletal system. However, there are numerous ways to reduce pelvic pain associated with low back pain while restoring pelvic function and restoring muscle strength to the surrounding core muscles in the pelvic region.

Is Motion Key To Healing- Video

Have you been experiencing any muscle stiffness around your hips, lower back, or pelvic region? Do you feel you have a limited range of motion in the morning, only for it to feel better throughout the day? Or are you experiencing bladder issues that are correlated with low back pain? Many of these pain-like scenarios are associated with pelvic pain and can cause common back pain issues that cause many individuals to be hunched over and be in constant pain. Since pelvic pain is a multifactorial musculoskeletal disorder, it can be associated with comorbidities that can cause issues to the lumbar region of the spine and affect the body’s mobility. However, numerous treatments can reduce the effects of pelvic pain and restore low back mobility to the body. When it comes to looking for treatments, many individuals will look for therapies that are cost-effective and can help reduce the referred pain that is associated with low back and pelvic pain. The video above shows how non-surgical treatments can help restore mobility to the lower extremities.

Acupuncture For Pelvic & Low Back Pain

When it comes to non-surgical treatments, many individuals will seek cost-effective treatments. Treatments like chiropractic care, spinal decompression, and massage therapy can help reduce low back pain, but for pelvic pain, many individuals will seek out acupuncture. Acupuncture is a medical practice performed by a highly trained professional that uses solid but thin needles in specific body areas. So, for individuals dealing with pelvic pain, acupuncture can help restore the balance of energy that is associated with the internal organs that are causing the pain. (Yang et al., 2022) Acupuncture can help restore power to the pelvic region by redirecting the energy to the body and helping reduce impairment and functional disorders. (Pan et al., 2023) Acupuncture can minimize low back pain by selecting certain trigger points that can influence the areas between the hips and back to unblock circulation back to the muscle. (Sudhakaran, 2021) When many people start incorporating acupuncture as part of their personalized treatment plan, they can utilize it with other therapies to feel better and improve their health.

References

Dydyk, A. M., & Gupta, N. (2023). Chronic Pelvic Pain. In StatPearls. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32119472

Murata, S., Hashizume, H., Tsutsui, S., Oka, H., Teraguchi, M., Ishomoto, Y., Nagata, K., Takami, M., Iwasaki, H., Minamide, A., Nakagawa, Y., Tanaka, S., Yoshimura, N., Yoshida, M., & Yamada, H. (2023). Pelvic compensation accompanying spinal malalignment and back pain-related factors in a general population: the Wakayama spine study. Sci Rep, 13(1), 11862. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-39044-2

Mutaguchi, M., Murayama, R., Takeishi, Y., Kawajiri, M., Yoshida, A., Nakamura, Y., Yoshizawa, T., & Yoshida, M. (2022). Relationship between low back pain and stress urinary incontinence at 3 months postpartum. Drug Discov Ther, 16(1), 23-29. doi.org/10.5582/ddt.2022.01015

Pan, J., Jin, S., Xie, Q., Wang, Y., Wu, Z., Sun, J., Guo, T. P., & Zhang, D. (2023). Acupuncture for Chronic Prostatitis or Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Pain Res Manag, 2023, 7754876. doi.org/10.1155/2023/7754876

Sudhakaran, P. (2021). Acupuncture for Low-Back Pain. Med Acupunct, 33(3), 219-225. doi.org/10.1089/acu.2020.1499

Yang, J., Wang, Y., Xu, J., Ou, Z., Yue, T., Mao, Z., Lin, Y., Wang, T., Shen, Z., & Dong, W. (2022). Acupuncture for low back and/or pelvic pain during pregnancy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMJ Open, 12(12), e056878. doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-056878

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