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Sept. 18, 2001 -- What is black and slimy and offers long-lasting relief from arthritis knee pain? If you guessed leeches, then your mind is in sync with doctors who used the biting creatures to treat pain and inflammation more than 100 years ago.
And now, German researchers have found that there definitely appears to be something to this alternative treatment after all. They studied 16 men and women with osteoarthritis, or degenerative arthritis, of the knee. Ten of these people agreed to have four leeches placed on the skin around their knee joint and left in place for about 80 minutes. Although the encounters with the leeches were described as being slightly painful, there were no serious side effects or infections.
Amazingly, the people who received the leech therapy experienced rapid relief of their knee pain within 24 hours. And even a month later, the participants report they felt significantly less pain.
The six people who refused to have the leech treatment received regular medical care and did not experience as much pain relief as the leech group.
The results of the study are published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
So, you ask, why would this bizarre treatment work? The researchers say healers from antiquity may have been on the right track, since the saliva of leeches has a variety of substances that act as painkillers and anesthetics.
Although it is possible that the leeches relieved pain because that's what the people expected and hoped to see, the researchers say that it's unlikely that there would still have been such considerable pain relief four weeks after the treatment.
They call their results "remarkable" and urge more research into the use of leeches for osteoarthritis of the knee.