Originating in China more than 2,000 years ago, acupuncture begin to become better known in the United States after the visit of President Nixon to China in 1972. Electroacupuncture, a variation of traditional acupuncture, has been studied in pain relief of various procedures including surgical operations. The goal of this study was to investigate the analgesic effects of electroacupuncture in the treatment of patients with advanced periodontitis during subgingival scaling and root planning. Five subjects (aged 35 to 49 [42.5 ± 4.3] years), who have periodontal pocket depth ≧ 7mm in at least 3 teeth and more than 50% of alveolar bone lost in each quadrant, were recruited. This is a split mouth designed study and the individual was randomly assigned to either 1). Experimental group – using electroacupuncture anesthesia or 2). Control group – using injection anesthesia. Subgingival Sc/Rp was performed by quadrant of the dentition under either injection or electroacupuncture anesthesia. Evaluation of analgesic effects of electroacupuncture was self-reported, with assessment made by the patient's indication of how painful each treated quadrant was on a visual analog scale (VAS) during subgingival Sc/Rp. Patients also assessed pain by using a 5-point verbal rating scale (VRS), from “no pain” to “very severe pain”. The median overall VAS pain score was 27 mm in the electroacupuncture group and 24 mm in the injection group during needle insertion and subgingival Sc/Rp. The scores of VRS revealed that no pain or only mild pain was reported in 90% of patients in the electroacupuncture group compared to 80% in the injection group. The results from this pilot study suggest that the electroacupuncture anesthesia may be effective for pain control during subgingival Sc/Rp and may offer a valuable alternative to conventional injection anesthesia. However, further studies and greater sample size are needed to confirm the analgesic effects of electroacupuncture during subg
