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Choo Led Sin, M.TCM, L.TCM, LAc

Acupuncturist since 1996

Vice President of Singapore Acupuncture Association

Foreign Committee of Anhui Acupuncture and Moxibustion Association (China)

Our founder, Choo Led Sin studied Auriculotherapy under Professor Doctor Zhang Qingping (Chinese: 张庆萍教授), a renowned professor in Auricular Therapy from Anhui University of Chinese Medicine of China (Chinese: 安徽中医学院) and former visiting Professor of Hong Kong Baptist University of China (Chinese: 中国香港浸会大学). Presently, he is working with Professor Fong Siew Kang, our visiting professor, to summarize his 40 years of clinical experience and cases study on acupuncture (including auricular therapy).

AURICULAR THERAPY (WITH OR WITHOUT NEEDLE)

USING NEEDLING ACUPUNCTURE OR

HIGH TECH, MICRO-CURRENT WITH NO NEEDLE

Auriculotherapy is safe, effective acupuncture or micro-current stimulation of nerve endings on the outer ears to help balance and/or normalize a range of physiological and psychological functions. Our founder, Choo Led Sin a certified acupuncture specialist at Choo Led Sin Clinic, located in Tanjong Pagar and Chinatown of Singapore, is an expert in Auricular Therapy who has studied this profession under the guidance of different professors.

In 1990, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) proclaimed to an international gathering that – “Auricular acupuncture is probably the most developed and best documented, scientifically, of all the micro-systems of acupuncture and is the most practical and widely used.” The WHO lists 150 diseases that Auriculotherapy is appropriate for.

What is Auriculotherapy?

Auriculotherapy is a therapy in which using acupuncture or gentle electrical stimulation of the external ear is used to alleviate health conditions in other parts of the body.
While originally based upon ancient Chinese Ear Acupuncture, the mapping of specific parts of the body to specific parts of the ear was first developed in modern France.
In 1957, Dr Paul Nogier, a physician from Lyon, France, observed the occurrence of scars on the ear of patients who had been treated successfully for sciatica pain by lay practitioners. Dr Nogier’s subsequent research lead to the “somatotopic” map of the ear, based upon the concept of an inverted “fetus” (upside-down baby) orientation.

Research studies in China and the USA verified the scientific accuracy of auricular diagnosis. In China the ear points of over 2,000 patients were assessed recording which points correlated with certain diseases and which ear points lead to reduction of medical symptoms. At UCLA 75% accuracy was achieved in correctly diagnosing the location of the musculoskeletal pain problems of 40 patients.

Expert panels were formed by the World Health Organization leading to international standardization of identification of ear reflex points.

An Auriculotherapy treatment can take 10–20 minutes. You will be lying on your side or back with a comfortable pillow to support your neck. The practitioner will be running a small battery-powered micro-current device around your ear. You will hear a quiet, high-pitch noise coming from the Stimplus. When the practitioner treats an active reflex point that he/she has located, you may feel a sensation of a pulse or a pin-prick: This sensation will only last 30–60 seconds for each point treated.

Micro-current is used in preference to needles, acupressure, laser and other forms of current (e.g. TENS), as this best matches the natural frequencies of the nerves being treated. Hence Micro-current is attempting to normalize abnormal nerve activities. The advanced design of the instrument utilized has the additional advantage of being able to locate the active reflex points, as well as treat.

There are no known contraindications or dangers of Auriculotherapy. (For ultra-safety it has been recommend not to have this treatment if you have a pacemaker or are in the first trimester of pregnancy.)

The number and regularity of Auriculotherapy sessions will depend on the severity and complexity of the health problems being treated and the severity and number of active reflex points located upon examination.

Auriculotherapy can be used as a “stand-alone” treatment, but has also found to be extremely effective and complementary when combined with the other TCM modalities and techniques.

A Brief History of Auricular Acupuncture

The use of acupuncture as a therapeutic intervention was first documented in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, a medical text compiled in China in 500 BCE. Among other information, this text described the meridians, named nine types of needles, outlined different needling techniques, and gave the location of 160 acupuncture points. The first known reference to auricular therapy was also made in China circa 100 BCE by Huang Di Nei Jing, who said, “All the vessels congregate in the ear.” Huang Di Nei Jing further developed acupuncture, naming 349 acupuncture points in his text, Systematic Classics of Acupuncture and Moxibustion.

Between 500 BCE and 100 CE, the practice spread from China throughout the Mediterranean. In the article “Ear Acupuncture in European Traditional Medicine” (Evid Based Complement Alternate Med. 2007;[suppl 1]:13-16), authors Luigi Gori and Fabio Firenzuoli note that, “The Ebers papyrus of 1550 BC (now in the British Museum) describes a system of channels and vessels in the body which approximates more closely to the Chinese system of channels than to any known system of blood vessels, lymph vessels or nerves. The Egyptologist Alexandre Varille (1909-1951) has documented that women in ancient Egypt who did not want any more children had their external ear pricked with a needle or cauterized with heat. Gold earrings worn by Mediterranean sailors were not just used as decorations, but were said to improve vision. Hippocrates, the father of Greek medicine, reported that doctors made small openings in the veins situated behind the ear to facilitate ejaculation and reduce impotency problems. Cutting of veins situated behind the ear was also used to treat leg pain. The Greek physician Galen introduced Hippocratic medicine to the Roman Empire in the second century CE and commented on the healing value of scarification at the outer ear.”

References can be found in Persian medical records describing treatments involving cauterization of the external ear for sciatic pain and sexual-related disease, and during the Renaissance, European clinical reports describe the use of ear cauterizations to relieve leg pain. Acupuncture continued to be used and developed throughout Chinese history, and from the 1600s to the 1800s, doctors working for the Dutch East India Company brought newer Chinese acupuncture practices to Europe, including those involving the ear.

The modern practice of auricular acupuncture was developed by Paul Nogier, a French physician who theorized that each part of the body is represented in a specific zone on the external ear and that through stimulation of these acupuncture points, therapeutic benefit in the corresponding body part would be derived. This became known as homunculus, or “the man in the ear.”

Read more about AURICULAR THERAPY from other research and scientific papers.