What is acute appendicitis? Is acute appendicitis serious?

Acute appendicitis is one of the most common gastrointestinal diseases. The onset of acute appendicitis is very rapid. The onset of acute appendicitis will cause great physical and mental pain to the patient. The main symptoms of acute appendicitis are unbearable pain in the lower abdomen, nausea and vomiting. Therefore, many people with acute appendicitis will also have symptoms of loss of appetite, which will cause malnutrition in patients.

It can be said that acute appendicitis is a disease that is very harmful to the patient's body. Of course, there are many classifications of acute appendicitis, and the treatments for different acute appendicitis are also different.

Acute appendicitis is the most common acute abdomen. Its clinical manifestations are persistent right lower abdominal pain with paroxysmal aggravation, nausea and vomiting, and increased white blood cell and neutrophil counts in most patients. Tenderness in the appendix area (McBurney's point) in the right lower abdomen is an important sign of this disease. Acute appendicitis is generally divided into four types : acute simple appendicitis, acute suppurative appendicitis, gangrenous and perforated appendicitis and periappendiceal abscess.

Acupuncture was used to treat acute appendicitis in the 1950s, and modern reports began to appear in the early 1950s. In the late 1950s, there was a wave of acupuncture and moxibustion fever for treating this disease in the Chinese medical community, and the Wenhui Daily on September 27, 1958, made a special report on it. By the end of the 1950s, a unit had compiled statistics on 1,542 cases of various types of acute appendicitis treated with acupuncture, with an overall effective rate of 84.2% for adults and 6.3% for children[1]. In the early 1960s, an analysis of 2,925 patients with acute appendicitis treated with acupuncture alone showed that the effective rate for acute simple appendicitis was 80.06%, the effective rate for acute attacks of chronic appendicitis was 52.68%, and the effective rate for appendiceal abscess was 35.60%[2]. Extensive practice in the past two decades has fully confirmed that acupuncture can be used as the main treatment for simple appendicitis and mild suppurative appendicitis, and is also an effective auxiliary treatment for other types of acute appendicitis. In terms of treatment methods, it can be said that there is a wide range of methods available. Almost all methods of acupoint stimulation have been reported. In particular, acupoint laser irradiation needle therapy, which has been developed in recent years, not only has similar efficacy to other methods, but is also safer and painless, and is more easily accepted by patients [3].

A lot of work has also been done on the mechanism of action of acupuncture in treating acute appendicitis. As early as the late 1950s, a collaborative research group on acupuncture mechanisms was established in Shanghai. Experimental studies have shown that acupuncture can improve the blood supply to the appendix, promote the body's clearance of harmful substances during the inflammation process, restore and strengthen the effective peristalsis of the appendix, facilitate the drainage of the appendix cavity and the absorption of inflammation, and at the same time enhance the body's immune function, thereby restoring the diseased area.

Recently, people have also discovered that the human appendix is ​​not a degenerate organ, but can secrete immune-active substances. The incidence of malignant tumors in people who have had their appendix removed is significantly increased[4]. In this sense, acupuncture treatment of acute appendicitis has even more important value.

The incidence of acute appendicitis is closely related to people's bad living habits in daily life. Some people not only overeat in daily life, but also do intense exercise immediately after eating. This is actually an important cause of acute appendicitis. Therefore, to reduce the incidence of acute appendicitis in daily life, we must develop good living habits.