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Reichbach, with wife Barbara Ann and grandchildren Steven and Savannah Cay, is a believer after his acupuncture experience.
Howard Reichbach was not the type to slow down. A hotel and restaurant manager, the Jacksonville resident also traveled the country to officiate big-name boxing matches.
But in 1997, he was dealt a one-two punch that ended up teaching him how to fight. One day at work, nauseated, feverish and thinking he had the flu, Reichbach went home to rest. The next day, he was in surgery with a collapsed bowel. Thirty years after being injured in Vietnam, the scar tissue that had built up in his abdomen took its toll.
"I had 750 perforations in my bowel that required an 11-hour surgery to fix," says Reichbach. Nine days later, his bowel collapsed again. Another surgery and 43 days in the hospital followed. Over the next seven years, Reichbach endured three more bowel surgeries, as well as a heart attack, severe pancreatitis and the onset of diabetes.
In August 2004, as he lay in a hospital bed two weeks after his fourth intestinal surgery, his doctor was concerned that his bowel function was not returning.
Dr. Ron Reimer uses acupuncture needles to restore a patient's gastric motility.
"He told me about a neurosurgeon who was successfully using acupuncture to help patients like me," says Reichbach. "He offered me no guarantees, but suggested I consider it."
Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon Dr. Ron Reimer placed acupuncture needles in pressure points to stimulate Reichbach's digestive system. He attached an electric stimulator to a couple of needles, which generated a low current aimed at circulating the energy flow in the body. Reichbach was covered with a thermal blanket and fell asleep. When he awoke a few hours later, he felt a rumbling in his belly — the first he'd felt in weeks.
"By the next day, things were pretty much back to normal again," says Reichbach.
Reimer has performed acupuncture on 18 surgical patients since late 2002. These 18 patients, including many organ transplant patients, had nausea, vomiting or weight loss and weren't getting better despite standard medical treatment. A 12-minute acupuncture treatment provided benefit to all patients, allowing 16 of them to go home from the hospital within 48 hours. It has also helped people with tinnitus, postoperative pain, post-chemotherapy nausea, motion sickness and insomnia. Reimer said the goal is to correct the imbalance in Reichbach's autonomic nervous system caused by the bowel surgeries and diabetes.
"In his case, the acupuncture is helping restore his gastric motility, and it is decreasing his nausea, which helps him eat more and gain back weight," says Reimer. "It has a ripple effect."
Acupuncture at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville is not new, but it is being used more often. Psychiatrist Dr. Siong-Chi Lin first began using it in 1997, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released acupuncture needles from the list of experimental medical tools. With the medical community becoming more aware of its benefits and enough clinical experience around the country to support it, the time was right.
"I felt there was a role for acupuncture in our clinical practice at that time," says Lin, who uses it to treat patients with chronic pain. His interest spread to other physicians, including Reimer, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Stephen Trigg and physiatrist Dr. Peter Dorsher.
Acupuncture may help treat a variety of health conditions. According to the National Institutes of Health, researchers are studying at least three possible explanations:
Electric stimulators attached to needles like this one (top) generate a low current aimed at circulating the body's energy flow. Sterilized, individually wrapped, stainless steel needles (bottom) are used once, then discarded.
"Acupuncture has been used for treating pain for centuries," says Dorsher. "To many, it's a foreign concept of diagnosing and treating illness. But it's really much more holistic, because it addresses both the physiological and psychological aspects."
Acupuncture originated in China thousands of years ago. Traditional Chinese medicine attributes disease to imbalances in the basic energetic flow of life — known as qi or chi (chee). Qi is believed to flow through 20 major pathways (meridians) in the body. These meridians and the energy flow are accessible through about 400 different acupuncture points. By inserting extremely fine needles into these points in various combinations, acupuncture practitioners believe that the energy flow is rebalanced. This allows the body's natural healing mechanisms to take over.
Dorsher, who has the most active acupuncture practice, has treated more than 1,000 patients with it in the past seven years. One of them is Jim Catlett.
Catlett struggled with constant neck and left arm pain for years after a severe, 1995 car accident. Even a daily dose of a powerful narcotic analgesic didn't dull the pain and allow him to function normally. Sleep was elusive. When his doctor suggested acupuncture, he was skeptical. That changed after his first treatment.
Reichbach with boxing great Larry Holmes at an event in Florida in the early 1990s.
"I slept solidly for the first time in years," says Catlett, 57, "and I didn't need to take my medicine for several days."
When the pain returned, he went back for more treatments, and the length of pain-free time increased after each visit. Now he goes in for a 30-minute treatment every three weeks and only takes a low-dose aspirin daily. He even plays tennis again.
"I couldn't be more pleased," he says. "I'm back as I was before, and I'm thrilled." His success impressed his daughter so much that she enrolled in acupuncture school after graduating from college.
The success rate for acupuncture is fairly consistent, says Dorsher. About 40 percent of patients have a dramatic response, 40 percent see good results and about 20 percent don't respond much.
"It works beautifully for soft-tissue problems," says Dorsher. "Those with major anatomic problems like spinal stenosis, herniated discs and arthritis involving severe joint deterioration have less of a response."
Age plays a part, too. Younger patients can sometimes get lasting relief after two or three treatments. Older patients whose pain-causing problems have set in awhile may need continued maintenance.
An acupuncture treatment typically costs between $60 and $90 but not all insurance plans cover it.
"Certain insurance plans do cover it if it's performed by a physician and some count it as a physical therapy treatment but many don't, including Medicare," says Dorsher.
Reichbach, 63, receives acupuncture maintenance treatments monthly. So far, it's still working. Now that he's feeling better, he's reconnected with several hobbies, including etching, water coloring and writing. An accomplished artist, he is currently writing and illustrating a children's book for his granddaughter. He's even judging boxing matches again.
"I'm happy with the outcome of this," says Reichbach. "I'm a believer."
To request an appointment at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, call (904) 953-0853 or complete our online appointment request form:
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