Applying Blood-letting Plus Electric Needle Therapy To Treat Insomnia Caused By Fire Derived From Liver-qi Stagnation

ObjectiveThis clinical controlled study makes objective evaluation of the curative effect and safety of applying blood-letting therapy plus electric needle acupuncture to treat insomnia caused by fire derived from liver-qi stagnation.MethodsThe subjects are insomnia patients. Case sources:64 qualified insomnia patients who were received in Chinese Medicine clinics in Taiwan. Western Medicine diagnostic criteria:refer to the diagnostic criteria of insomnia from Guidelines for the Clinical Research of Chinese Medicine New Drugs. Chinese Medicine differentiation types:refer to the differentiated types of "sleeplessness" from the textbook of Chinese Medicine Internal Medicine of the series of 21 Century Higher Education Textbooks for Chinese Medicine Universities and Colleges (Edition 1, People's Health Press,2002). The research takes the randomized trial methods and classifies subjects into the Treatment Group (Blood-letting and Electric Needle Therapy Group) and the Controlled Group (Chinese Herbal Medicine Group) with 32 patients in each group. Observation Indexes:safety examination, Chinese Medicine syndrome index, clinical symptoms, body signs and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Adopt PSQI to evaluate and observe the clinical curative effect. Establish a database with software Epi Data 3.1. Analyze with software SPSS 17.0. The interclass comparison of the numeration material takes t test (for heterogeneity of variance, take t'test or rank sum test). The self circa comparison takes pair t test or Wilcoxon pair rank sum test. The interclass comparison of the classified material is processed with 2 test. The interclass comparison of the ranked material is processed with Wilcoxon rank sum test.Result This randomized controlled clinical trial has 64 qualified subjects with 32 in the Treatment Group and 32 in the Controlled Group who are all clinic patients.Curative effect comparison:Compare the curative effect of the Chinese Medicine syndromes of the two groups and the author finds the difference has no significance. The Treatment Group's clinical recovery rate is 43.7%, the excellence rate is 31.2%, the effective power is 15.6%and the total effective power is 90.7%while those of the Controlled Group are 37.5%,28.1%,21.8% and 87.5%respectively. The difference has no statistical significance (P>0.05).The difference in the improvement of insomnia before and after treatment of the two groups has no statistical significance (P>0.05)Comparison of the disappearance rate of the major clinical symptoms and body signs after treatment:There's significance in the difference (P<0.05) of the disappearance rate of symptoms including difficulty falling asleep, restless sleep, poor consciousness at awakening, irritability, sleeplessness all night, red eyes and tinnitus, etc. The difference has no statistical significance (P>0.05) in the disappearance rate of the symptoms including early awakening and dreaminess, lassitude and spiritlessness, anxiety, exhaustion, sleeplessness, fidgety, chest distress and pain, thirsty and strong desire to drink, no desire to drink, dry and bitter mouth, vertigo, headache, yellowish and reddish urine, constipation, etc.The difference in sleeping duration and daily function score has statistical significance (P<0.05)The difference has no statistical signif icance(P>0.05)in the sleep latency, sleep efficiency and sleep disorder scores.After 1 treatment course, the Treatment Group is evaluated to be superior to the Chinese Herbal Medicine Group in sleeping duration, daily function, sleeping quality and sleeping disorder while has similar curative effect with the Chinese Herbal Medicine Group in other constituents.The recheck of the blood and urine routine tests, GPT, BUN and electrocardiogram test finds no abnormalities.Conc l us i onThrough the clinical research and the literature analysis, the following conclusions may be drawn: 1. Compared with Chinese Herbal Medicine treatment, blood-letting plus electric needle acupuncture has better curative effect in treatment insomnia caused by fire derived from liver-qi stagnation.2. Compared with Chinese Herbal Medicine treatment, blood-letting plus electric needle acupuncture has better curative effect in improving patients' sleeping quality and daily activity function. This therapy is safe, reliable, simple and effective.