Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese system of healing in which thin needles are inserted into selected points in the body to relieve pain and stimulate healing. Traditional practitioners believe the process treats a person's vital energy or qi (pronounced "chee"), which flows along natural pathways known as meridians. Western researchers theorize the needles activate deep sensory nerves, causing the pituitary gland and midbrain to release natural painkillers called endorphins.

Dr. Michael Hollifield, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, conducted a study of acupuncture and PTSD from 2003-04 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The study involved 84 men and women with PTSD, including a handful of combat veterans, and was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

"Acupuncture in this preliminary pilot study looked to be very helpful for PTSD and perhaps in some ways as helpful as the standard treatment of cognitive behavioral therapy," says Hollifield, who is waiting for the study results to be published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. "I can't give numbers pending publication, but acupuncture proved helpful enough to where some participants said they were significantly helped and/or did not have as much of their post-traumatic stress symptoms anymore."

Additional acupuncture and PTSD studies are in the works. Alaine Duncan, executive director of Crossings Healingworks in Silver Spring, Md., is the assessing acupuncturist with a PTSD study at the Deployment Health Clinical Center at WRAMC. In addition, she works as an acupuncturist in the War-Related Injuries and Illnesses Study Center at the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center.

Officials at WRAMC approached Duncan about the acupuncture study. "My experience has been that the military is more open than civilian hospitals when it comes to the study of complementary medicine," she says.