Auriculotherapy

Auriculotherapy has a long standing history of helping people restore balance in their lives by helping them feel well, calm, and at ease. Auriculotherapy treats the brain reward deficiency syndrome and allows many people to experience success in their efforts at being well when many previous attempts have failed. People recovering from substance abuse or people with mood disorders, learning disorders, sleep disorders, chronic fatigue, and a host of other conditions find Auriculotherapy helps to balance and normalize a wide range of their physiological and psychological conditions. It’s an effective treatment for:

• Reducing cravings and the intensity of withdrawal.
• Reducing anxiety and nervousness.
• Reducing pain from injuries, chronic substance abuse and drinking.
• Treating insomnia and chronic fatigue.
• Treating nicotine addiction.
• Treating sugar cravings.
• Treating obsessive compulsive behaviors.
• Treating ADD/ ADHD.

Auriculotherapy is in wide use as a successful treatment for both addiction treatment and detoxification. Hundreds of drug courts, residential and outpatient treatment centers, private practitioners, and addiction counselors have combined auriculotherapy with group therapy, one-on-one counseling, and psychotherapy.

What is the product?

Auriculotherapy is the application of a gentle micro-current, at specific frequencies, to certain points on the outside surface of the ear (the auricule) using a FDA approved instrument. We stimulate the brain so it secretes neurotransmitters such as endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine that calm the brain, and thus calm your drives and compulsions. When a person is experiencing the “feel good” chemistry of the brain, the anxiety-driven thoughts and rituals are no longer necessary. Where there is a properly functioning dopamine pathway in the brain, there exists a balanced thinking and feeling person. Where there is balance and ease, there is no opportunity for compulsive thoughts, acts or feelings.

How It Is Done

Auriculotherapy points are created by stimulation of four cranial nerves and three cervical ganglia. A small hand-held probe:

1. locates the auriculotherapy point
2. diagnoses the located point
3. treats the auriculotherapy point

Stimulation for 15 to 30 seconds per point, produces beneficial results for all addictions. And it is painless, efficient and specific. Both ears are treated in 10 minute sessions, five days a week for 15-30 days.

What does the product do for the patient?

The objective of Auricular Therapy is to reduce the cravings, and anxiety that drive a person to engage in self destructive or socially unacceptable behaviors.

Like falling dominoes, brain chemicals must be released in the right sequence for you to feel a sense of pleasure. If that release, or neurotransmitter “cascade,” is interrupted, you don’t experience enjoyment. Auriculotherapy helps release the pleasure-producing brain chemicals called endorphins in the right sequence.

The treatment helps relax patients, which opens addicted persons to the therapy program and encourages compliance to a recovery program. It also enables patients to feel less apathetic and more highly motivated to stay off drugs. It reduces drug cravings and their sense of physical and emotional withdrawal.

Why is Auriculotherapy better than the available alternatives?

The alternative, acupuncture involves much longer treatment sessions: 45 to 60 minutes of stimulation as opposed to 15- to 30 seconds/ reflex point.

The advantages of auriculotherapy are many:

• No risk of hepatitis, HIV or other infections because no needles are used.
• Less than 10-minute treatment time compared to one-hour with ear acupuncture.
• Useful for both detoxification as well as treatment of multiple drug addictions, not just for opiate dependence.
• Micro-current devices both locate and treat points.
• It can address the patient's drug of choice by adding or subtracting certain points accordingly.

The World Health Organization has endorsed Auriculotherapy as a highly effective treatment for chemical dependency (Addiction), pain and well over 100 medical conditions. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) both endorse the use of Auriculotherapy in treating the physical dimension of the disease.