Ear Acupuncture for Acute Sore Throat.

Mike O'Callaghan Military Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Acute Sore Throat

Treatments: Device: Standard treatment plus ear acupuncture

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT01302769

FWH20110008H

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to compare ear acupuncture plus standard of care versus standard therapy (anti-inflammatory medications) in the reduction of pain, reduction in oral anti inflammatory medication use, hours lost from work in acute sore throat.

Enrollment: 56 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion:

• Male and female subjects (DoD beneficiaries), 18 years or older, with upper respiratory complaints and their primary symptom being acute sore throat.
• Minimum pain score of 5 points on an 11 point scale (0-10 with 10 being the worst pain)

Exclusion:

• History of significant gastrointestinal bleed
• Previous documented history of stage 2 kidney disease or worse
• Known Pregnancy
• History of gastric bypass surgery
• Known Peritonsillar abscess (PTA)
• Throat, mouth or esophageal cancer
• Chronic oral steroids use
• Absence of one or more ears
• Active cellulitis of ear
• Ear anatomy precluding identification of acupuncture landmarks
• Non-English speaking
• Use of Hearing Aids that preclude the use of ear acupuncture
• Allergy to Ibuprofen

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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56 participants in 2 patient groups

battlefield auricular acupuncture

Experimental group

Description:

battlefield auricular acupuncture

Treatment:

Device: Standard treatment plus ear acupuncture

placebo

No Intervention group