Effects of different moxibustion durations on lumbar disk herniation: a clinical study

Objective: To explore the best duration of moxibustion on lumbar disk herniation(LDH).Methods: A total of 88 patients were randomly divided into control group and 15-min, 30-min, and 45-min moxibustion groups. The control group was treated with conventional therapy, while the other 3 groups were intervened with different moxibustion durations. Low back pain, dysfunction, lumbar function, and effective rates were evaluated before, in the first week and second week of intervention.Results: In low back pain, compared with the control group, the score of the 15-min group had no significant difference, but it was significantly lower in the 30-min and 45-min groups. In dysfunction and lumbar function, compared with the control group, the scores of the 15-min, 30-min, and 45-min groups were significantly higher, and the scores of the 30-min and 45-min groups were significantly higher, but there was no significant difference between the 30-min and 45-min group. In effective rates, there was no significant difference between the control group and 15-min group; the effective rates of the 30-min and 45-min groups were significantly higher than those of the control group.Conclusions: Moxibustion has good therapeutic effect on LDH with specific moxibustion time.