Stimulated by Jung et al 2020.[1] Monument of Admiral Zheng He located in the Stadthuys, Melaka.Photo by Hassan Saeed from Melaka, Malaysia (reproduced under CC licence). This paper popped up on my searches because it had fibromyalgia in the abstract. I don’t deliberately search for fibromyalgia, but it is linked in the PubMed system of terms … Continue reading Proton MRS 2020
Stimulated by recent letters in Acupuncture in Medicine.[1–4] Artist is Elihu Vedder (1836–1923). Photographed in 2007 by Carol M. Highsmith (1946–).Minerva is the Roman goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, strategic warfare, commerce weaving and the crafts. Her Greek equivalent is Athena... In the last week or so we have published several letters online, and they … Continue reading Mike’s minerva 1
Stimulated by Lee et al 2019 & Wei et al 2019.[1,2] Photo by Brad Lloyd on Unsplash. Back pain was a regular topic on this blog at its inception in March 2016 – around the time that the draft of NG59 was published. NG59 is the current NICE guideline for back pain and sciatica, although … Continue reading Phantom acupuncture for back pain
Stimulated by Lee et al 2019.[1] Photo by Anton Nikolov on Unsplash.My favourite place to get images is Unsplash. It doesn’t have anything on the retroperitoneum or abscesses, so I went with loin, and then kidney, and found this lovely image of a kidney shaped lake. The title may sound to you like another adverse … Continue reading Retroperitoneal abscess with pylephlebitis
Stimulated by Liu et al 2019.[1] Photo by Idella on Unsplash.This image is chosen to illustrate the phrase 'like trying to find a needle in a haystack', and it reminds me of the difficulties surgeons used to have in finding embedded foreign bodies. This is a noteworthy case because it is the first report I … Continue reading Laparoscopic needle fragment removal 2019
Stimulated by Tucciarone et al and Choi et al 2019.[1,2] Photo by Jairo Alzate on Unsplash. These two papers popped up on one of my PubMed searches on Monday 22nd July. They are both adverse events related to acupuncture in the region of the spine. One avoidable, and the other probably not, and both in … Continue reading Spinal AEs 2019
In regret triggered by the title of Probst et al 2019.[1] This diagram illustrates the anatomical location of piriformis relative to the pelvis, and the characteristic pain referral patterns that form part of the myofascial syndrome. The blue dots on the leg represent tingling that might occur if there is nerve entrapment in piriformis syndrome. … Continue reading Piriformis revisited
Inspired by Shew et al 2019.[1] Shew et al 2019.[1] This is the first reported case of a spinal epidural abscess as a possible complication of acupuncture treatment in New Zealand. It is the 15th such report I can find in the literature (on PubMed), but this report and most others cannot make irrefutable causal … Continue reading Spinal epidural abscesses
Inspired by Priola et al 2019.[1] This is the first reported case of a cranial epidural abscess as a likely complication of acupuncture treatment. The report was written by the specialist neurosurgical team under whom the patient was admitted. This is often the case in such unusual and serious adverse events, but it also limits … Continue reading Cranial epidural abscess
Inspired by Jian et al. Medicine 2018 Last Saturday (3rd November 5, 2018) I was lecturing on the BMAS Foundation Course, and during the morning coffee break I received one of my regular email alerts from PubCrawler – an Irish website that searches (or crawls) PubMed (the US National Library of Medicine) leaving you free to … Continue reading Another fatality
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