Laser Acupuncture May Help Break The Habit Of Bedwetting

A new study suggests laser acupuncture therapy may help children break the habit of wetting the bed.

Researchers from the Haydarpasa Numune Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey used traditional Chinese medicine to test whether or not targeting specific spots on the body commonly associated with the bladder could prevent bedwetting.

The study participants were between the ages of eight and nine and reported wetting the bed, on average, four nights a week. The researchers used low-power laser acupuncture therapy on two-thirds of the 91 children who participated in the study and used a fake laser on the remaining children.

After 15 days of treatment, 40 percent of the children who received the laser acupuncture therapy stopped wetting the bed, compared to eight percent of the children who received the fake laser treatment. After six months, those numbers increased to 54 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

"The results show that laser acupuncture therapy, which is noninvasive, painless, short-term therapy with low cost, can be considered as an alternative therapy for patients with (bedwetting)," Dr. Orhan Koca, one of the study's authors, told Reuters Health.

The National Institute of Health reports that 5 million children over the age of five wet the bed in the U.S.