JP3137933B2 - Insulated needle for acupuncture and moxibustion and method of manufacturing the same - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an insulated needle for acupuncture and moxibustion and a method for producing the same.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Oriental medicine has recently been reviewed, and acupuncture and moxibustion used in oriental medicine have been studied.
Acupuncture is a method of healing the affected area by stimulating muscles and nerves (acupoints) that have meridians with the affected area. Conventionally, acupuncture is mechanically stimulated by acupuncture points, but in order to apply stimulation many times, it is necessary to perform acupuncture many times. On the other hand, recently, it has been considered that an electric current is applied to an acupuncture to give an electric stimulus in addition to a mechanical stimulus (Journal of the Society of Oriental Therapy School Association No. 13 (1989)). In this case, if an electric current is applied in a pulsed manner, it is possible to apply a plurality of stimuli to the acupoint with one puncture of the acupuncture, which is an effective method.

The material of the acupuncture needle is a metal having little effect on the human body, for example, iron, gold, or silver. When the acupuncture needle is used as it is, current flows from the entire surface of the acupuncture needle to the human body and to the acupoint. The current will be small. Therefore, an insulated acupuncture needle whose surface is covered with an insulator except for the tip is used.

[0004] The requirements for insulated needles are that the insertion can be performed at the same level as conventional needles (hereinafter referred to as "non-insulated needles") and that the needles are completely covered with an insulating coating. Non-insulated needles have a diameter of 0.1-0.2m to facilitate insertion
In order to pierce the acupuncture point with a thickness of m and avoiding blood vessels,
Has some flexibility. Even though it is inevitable that the acupuncture will be thickened due to the insulating coating, the thickness must be minimized. In addition, the coating must be familiar with muscles and the like and have low penetration resistance.

In addition, the insulating coating must completely cover the metal surface. If there are incomplete portions of the coating, the metal will ionize and dissolve into the muscle when an electric current is applied. Even if metal melts out, the amount is small and there is no problem with the human body in particular, but if there is an incomplete part of the coating, the needle will become extremely thin and break there, leaving the tip of the needle in the muscle There's a problem.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an insulated acupuncture needle for acupuncture and moxibustion which is familiar to a human body and is completely insulated by a thin film.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an insulated acupuncture needle for acupuncture and moxibustion, wherein the surface is completely coated with an acrylic-fluorine paint to a thickness of 3.5 to 10 μm and has water repellency. is there. According to the present invention, the water-repellent acrylic-fluorine-based paint is familiar to the human body and can easily cover the acupuncture completely. The fact that the acrylic-fluorine paint is most suitable for covering needles was determined by the present inventors through experiments. When the coating thickness of the acrylic-fluorine paint is 3.5 μm or less, insulation failure is partially caused. If this exceeds 10 μm, the diameter of the
m or more and the insertion resistance increases.

[0008] The present invention also relates to an anionic acrylic-fluorine-based electrodeposition paint solution for imparting water repellency, wherein acupuncture needles are used as cathodes, and the paint is coated to a thickness of 3.5 to 10 µm on the surface of the needles. A method for producing an insulated acupuncture needle for acupuncture and moxibustion, comprising electrodeposition, preliminary drying, and baking and hardening. According to the present invention, the acupuncture needle for an acupuncture and moxibustion is an anionic acryl-
Electrodeposited in a fluorine-based coating solution. Electrodeposition is performed, for example, at 15 V for 0.7 to 2 minutes so that the thickness of the coating film becomes 3.5 to 10 μm using acupuncture needles as cathodes. Thereby, it is easily completely coated to a thickness of 3.5 to 10 μm. The electrodeposited paint is pre-dried by a known method and then baked and cured.

[0009]

FIG. 1 is an overall view and a sectional view of an insulated needle 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The metal needle 2 has a diameter of, for example, 180 μm, and the length L1 of the piercing portion is 45 m.
m, and the thickness of the insulating coating 3 is 5 μm. Therefore, the diameter of the insulated needle is 190 μm.

[0010] Because the acupuncture can be smoothly inserted into the muscle,
Using a muscle model as a basic experiment, we examined the relationship between the wettability of the surface of the acupuncture needle and the puncture resistance, actually punctured the human body, and examined the resistance of the piercer and the resistance of the subject.

1. Creation of insulated needle (needle) 1 inch 6 minutes 3rd needle for moxibustion head acupuncture made by Seirin (48.5m in total length)
m, diameter 180 μm) and an industrial sewing machine needle manufactured by Schmet (Canu: 14:25 EB, Nm: 100/1).
6), and four types of chemically modified acrylic paints shown in Table 1 were applied by an electrodeposition coating method. Electrodeposition coating uses acrylic paint as an anion type and acupuncture (needle) as cathode,
A current was applied from the non-soluble counter electrode under the electrodeposition conditions shown in Table 1,
It forms a film on the surface of acupuncture (needle). The electrodeposited coating was pre-dried at 100 ° C. for 10 minutes,
Bake hardened at 0 ° C. for 30 minutes.

2. Acrylic paint was applied to stainless steel under the same conditions as the acupuncture needles, and the physical properties of the four acrylic paints were examined. Table 1 shows the results.

[0013]

[Table 1]

The physical properties of the coating were measured by the following methods. (1) Dielectric breakdown voltage The acrylic paint 13 is applied to one surface, and a test piece 14 is formed on the other surface where the stainless steel base material 12 to which nothing is applied is exposed, and this test piece is shown in FIG. A power supply device 15 whose output voltage is variable is connected to the two electrodes 10 and 11, sandwiched between the two electrodes 10 and 11. When the output voltage is gradually increased, the insulation of the acrylic paint 13 is broken. The maximum applied voltage immediately before the breakdown is measured by a voltmeter 16 and is defined as a breakdown voltage.

(2) Adhesiveness The remaining number when a small portion of 10 × 10 = 100 was cross-cut at 1 mm intervals in the vertical and horizontal directions, and this was peeled off with a cellophane adhesive tape. 100/100 has no peeling.

(3) Flexibility Bending at 180 ° at a curvature of 3 mmφ, cracks and peeling were visually observed. Good is one without cracks and peeling.

(4) Contact angle One type of wettability test method, in which 20 pieces of (I) water and (II) salad oil are dropped on a stainless steel plate on which a coating film is formed, respectively.
The droplets at that time were photographed by a close-up television camera under coaxial epi-illumination, and connected with a Nireco Luzex 5000X computer image analysis system.
The analysis was performed with an accuracy of m, the droplet diameter (equivalent circle diameter) observed in the upward direction was measured, the contact angle was determined in a three-dimensional manner, and the average of 20 droplets was determined (Nagomi Trial Method). The larger the contact angle, the greater the water repellency (oil). The acrylic-fluorine-based paint has higher water repellency and oil repellency than other acrylic paints.

3. Preparation of muscle model As a muscle model for acupuncture, hydrogel, oil gel and pork close to human muscle were used.

(A) Preparation of Hydrogel Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) [Gozenol NL-05 manufactured by Nippon Gohsei (viscosity: 4.6 to 6.0 cps, saponification degree 98.5% or more)] is heated with hot water. Completely dissolved, 15
% Aqueous solution, and the aqueous solution was frozen at -20 ° C for 8 hours,
Leave at room temperature for 12 hours to thaw. Thereafter, freezing at −20 ° C. and thawing at room temperature are repeated 6 to 8 times. Observation of this hydrogel with an electron microscope revealed no chemical crosslinking. Table 2 shows the moisture content, hardness, and tensile strength. this is,
The value is close to that of human muscle, and the tactile sensation by hand is close to that of human muscle, and is stable for a long time.

(B) Preparation of oil gel 300 ml of salad oil (manufactured by Hosei Corporation, commercially available) is heated to about 80 ° C., and 10 g of a gelling agent (manufactured by Johnson) is added thereto.
Was dissolved and then cooled to room temperature. The physical properties are shown in Table 2. This also has the same hardness as the hydrogel of (a) and is stable for a long time.

[0021]

[Table 2]

4. Muscle model piercing resistance Two types of hydrogel, oil gel and pork 1. The sewing machine needle created in 2
Inserts in seconds, and the resistance of the insertion is made by Kato Tech KE
It was measured using an S compression tester. FIG. 3 is a graph showing the relationship between the penetration resistance and the contact angle of the paint with water.

When the contact angle of the hydrogel increases,
The penetration resistance increases, and the penetration resistance of oil gel and pork decreases as the contact angle increases. The penetration resistance value of the oil gel and pork is as small as 1/3 to 1/5 regardless of the contact angle. This indicates that the existence state of water in the muscle model, the frictional resistance at the interface between the muscle model and the needle, and the wettability of the paint to water are greatly involved. FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of this relationship. The hydrogel is an O / W gel of water / oil / oil (air), and the relationship between the muscle model and the needle is determined by the relationship between the surface tension of water and the paint. At the interface, water is spread over the entire surface, and piercing resistance is increased. In addition, a paint that is more easily wet (has a smaller contact angle) has a lower penetration resistance. On the other hand, pork is an oil / water / oil (air) W / O gel and is considered to have low penetration resistance due to water drops at the interface between the muscle model and the needle. In addition, a paint that is hard to wet (has a large contact angle) has a low penetration resistance. Pork has a structure similar to human muscle even if it undergoes structural changes due to metamorphosis after death. Similarly, it is considered that acupuncture coated with a paint having a large contact angle has low penetration resistance to the human body.

5. Insertion test of the human body Five subjects (3 boys and 2 girls with different ages) from the Neutral Acupuncture College An insertion test was performed using four types of insulated acupuncture needles prepared in the above section and commercially available insulated acupuncture needles. In order to perform a correct evaluation, the same person inserts into the subject,
The type of acupuncture was not known to the piercer or the subject.
In the piercing test, the puncture resistance of the piercer and the subject was evaluated on a 5-point scale, and the results are shown in Table 3.

[0025]

[Table 3]

As predicted from the penetration resistance of the muscle model, the insulated acupuncture coated with the acrylic-fluorine-based paint having the largest contact angle showed the best penetration resistance feeling for the piercer. Insulated needles made of acrylic-melamine-based, acrylic-urethane-based, and acrylic-epoxy-based paints all have some resistance and are poor in piercing properties. Furthermore, it can be seen that commercially available insulated needles have a considerable resistance and are the least piercing. On the other hand,
The insulated acupuncture needle coated with the acrylic-fluorine-based paint showed excellent piercing properties in the fifth stage, which was almost painless with no piercing resistance. Other insulated needles showed considerable individual differences in puncture resistance and pain, but none of the fifth stages had little resistance and little pain.

[0027]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, a water-repellent insulated acupuncture needle coated with an acrylic-fluorine-based paint to a thickness of 3.5 to 10 μm and having water repellency is provided. It has excellent insulation properties, low insertion resistance and no pain at the time of insertion, and is effective for future electroacupuncture. According to the second aspect of the present invention, the acupuncture for acupuncture and moxibustion is easily coated with an acrylic-fluorine coating that imparts water repellency to the surface by electrodeposition, so that it can easily have a water repellency of 3.5 to 10 μm. Coating film is obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall view and a sectional view of an insulated needle 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a method for measuring a dielectric breakdown voltage.

FIG. 3 is a graph showing the relationship between the penetration resistance and the contact angle of paint with water.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a state of an acupuncture tip when acupuncture is inserted into a muscle model.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Insulated needle 2 Metal part of insulated needle 3 Insulated coating

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-61-79458 (JP, A) JP-A-9-59542 (JP, A) JP-A-6-218024 (JP, A) JP-A 63-79024 291966 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A61H 39/08

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An acrylic-fluorine paint having a surface of 3.5
An insulated needle for acupuncture and moxibustion, which is completely coated to a thickness of 10 to 10 μm and has water repellency. 2. An anionic acryl which imparts water repellency.
In a fluorine-based electrodeposition paint solution, the acupuncture needle is used as a cathode, and the paint is electrodeposited on the surface of the needle to a thickness of 3.5 to 10 μm, pre-dried, and then baked and cured. Manufacturing method of insulating acupuncture needle for acupuncture.