Acupuncture in Spinal Cord Injury Subjects

Participants within the acupuncture treatment group will receive traditional body acupuncture with electrical stimulation for 30 minutes three times a week, additionally participants will also receive auricular acupuncture once a week with the needles retained in both ears for seven days and replaced the following week, for a total of eight weeks (24 treatments of conventional acupuncture and 8 treatments of auricular acupuncture). Relative pain levels will be measured via the NRS by a member of the research staff before and after each treatment. All participants will then be reevaluated with the described assessment tools at three months and again at six months. Acupuncturists will not participate in the three and six month evaluations of subjects.