A 65-year-old woman in South Korea, seeking relief from debilitating arthritis pain, was left in a worse state after discovering hundreds of tiny gold acupuncture threads had been permanently embedded in her knee.
The Shocking Discovery on an X-Ray
Doctors were performing a routine assessment of the woman's osteoarthritis when an X-ray revealed a startling sight. Instead of a clear view of the joint, the scan showed numerous metallic specks concentrated around her kneecaps and spreading to her shin bone and upper thigh. These were identified as gold threads, each about three to five millimetres long, left behind from a previous course of acupuncture therapy intended to soothe her joint pain.
The patient, who suffers from osteoarthritis—a condition affecting millions where protective cartilage wears down—had increasingly turned to alternative treatments like gold thread acupuncture after using conventional medicine. Her eventual hospital visit was prompted by severe, worsening knee pain, which the embedded threads were likely exacerbating.
The Hidden Dangers of Embedded Foreign Objects
Gold thread acupuncture is a traditional practice in parts of Asia where sterile gold threads are inserted into acupuncture points to provide continuous stimulation. However, medical experts strongly advise against it. The threads are not absorbed by the body and can migrate over time, damaging surrounding tissues and causing severe, recurrent infections.
In their report in the New England Journal of Medicine, the treating doctors cautioned that such threads severely complicate diagnosis. The metallic specks obscure anatomical details on medical scans, potentially masking critical information. The report did not confirm if the threads were removed from the 65-year-old patient, but leaving them in place carries significant risk.
A Pattern of Painful Complications
This case is far from isolated. Medical literature documents several harrowing instances linked to gold thread acupuncture:
- In 2021, a Korean woman presented with a severely swollen, cyst-covered leg. Doctors discovered the infection was caused by gold threads that had migrated from her back, where they were implanted a decade earlier, travelling through blood vessels to settle in her leg tissue.
- Another 2021 case involved a 50-year-old woman who developed firm, red bumps on her face after cosmetic gold thread acupuncture. A biopsy confirmed a chronic inflammatory reaction called a foreign body granuloma, a challenging condition to treat once formed.
- In 2022, a 73-year-old Korean man hospitalised for a stroke revealed a 30-year history of self-treating joint pain with the therapy. X-rays showed thousands of gold threads embedded throughout his body. He was later properly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a condition his self-treatment had obscured for decades.
While practitioners claim the threads trigger a constant release of pain-relieving endorphins, there is no scientific evidence to support these claims. The immune system often recognises the degrading gold as a foreign invader, setting off persistent inflammatory processes.
Medical professionals warn that relying on such unproven holistic therapies in place of proper medical consultation can allow serious conditions, like autoimmune rheumatoid arthritis, to go undiagnosed and untreated, leading to potentially severe long-term consequences.
