Acupuncture treatment for cold pain in the lower extremities: a case report.

Lower extremity pain has an increasing incidence globally and has become one of the most common clinical complaints.1 Most affected patients report cold pain in the lower extremities and the feeling of cold is often a persistent symptom, even after the pain is relieved. There are various reasons for pain in the lower extremities including lumbar disc herniation, sciatica and lower limb vascular compromise, among others. Acupuncture has been acknowledged to be effective at treating lumbar disc herniation and sciatica, with a certain amount of evidence to support it, but the main mechanism underlying its use for the treatment of cold pain still remains unclear. In this report, based on musculoskeletal ultrasound evaluation, we explore the effect of acupuncture on the symptoms of lower extremity cold pain patients and discuss the potential mechanism.