In the treatment of hemifacial spasm, the operative methods, such as neurovascular decompression, rhizotomy etc. are the most efficacious therapy on its control. But, due to some side effects and complication, pharmacotherapy has been the first attempted by first intention of hemifacial spasm.
The cabamazepine is the most commonly used agent, however it is often inefficacious in some cases, and attenuates as the time passes, engages in some symptoms, such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and causes an aplastic anemia, it has many deficiencies in becoming the first intention.
Acupuncture is a simple, effective and conservative spasm control modality. It is so simple to use in hemifacial spasm. We had observed 5 cases of hemifacial spasm which were treated by acupuncture in our hospital recently. We reported these cases and reviewed related literatures briefly.
The results of treatment are as follows : The average grade of spasm intensity classified by Scott´s description was 3 before acu-therapy and it became 2 after the therapy.
These results suggest that acupuncture and ear-acupuncture were effective as the first intention in healing hemifacial spasm.
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