Abstract
We have experienced three cases of cervical cord or radicular symptoms caused by acupuncture needle migrating into the cervical spinal canal.
Two patients had cevical cord symptoms and the other one had radicular symptoms. The first case was a 63-year-old female, who noted numbness in her bilateral fingers, 5 years following her acupuncture treatment. The second case was a 52-year-old male, who had had a nuchal discomfort and treated himself with a needle. He unfortunately broke the needle. Two months following the event, numbness appeared in his bilateral upper and lower extremities. The last case was a 44-year-old male. He had felt radiating pain in the middle of his acupuncture treatment. He subsequently developed pain in the great occipital nerve area during neck rotation.
The needles were removed surgically, in all cases. The symptoms were dramatically resolved in the second and the third cases, In the first case, however, the neurological deficits did not improve after the operation, which seemed to be ascribable to the irreversible changes which had occured in the spinal cord.
