A 65-year-old woman in South Korea, seeking relief from debilitating arthritis pain, was left in shock after discovering the alternative treatment she trusted had made her condition far worse. An X-ray, intended to assess her osteoarthritis, revealed hundreds of tiny gold threads embedded around her knee from a prior acupuncture session.
The Hidden Dangers of Gold Thread Acupuncture
The patient had been diagnosed with osteoarthritis, a painful joint condition affecting millions worldwide where protective cartilage wears down, causing bone to grind on bone. After trying conventional medicine, she increasingly turned to alternative therapies, including gold thread acupuncture.
This practice, popular in parts of Asia, involves inserting sterile gold threads, just three to five millimetres long, into specific acupuncture points. Proponents claim they provide continuous stimulation and pain relief long after the session ends, though there is no scientific evidence to support these claims.
When her knee pain became severe, she went to hospital. Scans showed the expected signs of osteoarthritis, but also a startling constellation of specks centred on her kneecap and spreading to her shin and thigh. Doctors identified these as the forgotten gold threads.
Risks of Migration and Chronic Infection
The medical team, who detailed the case in the New England Journal of Medicine, cautioned that such foreign objects can severely complicate diagnosis by obscuring anatomy on scans. More alarmingly, the threads pose significant health risks.
The threads can migrate through the body's tissues, potentially damaging surrounding areas and causing severe infections. While the report did not specify if this patient's threads were removed, experts stress that leaving them in is dangerous. Removal itself is tricky, requiring a small incision, and attempting it at home can lead to infection, scarring, or leaving fragments behind.
A Disturbing Pattern of Complications
This case is not isolated. Medical literature reveals a pattern of serious side effects from gold thread acupuncture. In 2021, Korean doctors treated a woman with a chronically swollen, cyst-ridden leg. She had undergone the therapy on her back a decade earlier. Doctors concluded that the non-absorbable gold particles had migrated through her vessels to her leg, causing recurrent infections for years.
That same year, a separate report in the Indian Journal of Dermatology described a 50-year-old woman who developed firm, red bumps on her face six months after cosmetic gold thread acupuncture. A biopsy confirmed a chronic inflammatory reaction called a foreign body granuloma, a common immune response to persistent foreign material.
In 2022, a 73-year-old Korean man hospitalised for a stroke revealed a 30-year history of self-treating joint pain with gold thread acupuncture. X-rays showed thousands of the embedded threads throughout his body. He was later properly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a condition his self-treatment had masked for decades.
Medical Experts Issue Stern Warning
Medical professionals strongly advise against gold thread acupuncture. Introducing permanent foreign objects into the body is inherently risky. Over time, even gold can degrade, releasing compounds that trigger a sustained immune response and inflammation.
Furthermore, relying on such unproven holistic therapies in place of proper medical consultation can allow serious conditions, like autoimmune arthritis, to go undiagnosed and untreated. The 65-year-old woman's distressing experience serves as a potent reminder that seeking pain relief through unregulated alternative treatments can lead to greater harm.
