Acupuncture For Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that causes chronic pain and fatigue. The cause is unknown and there is no agreed treatment.

A study from the Mayo Clinic¹ suggests that acupuncture may be useful in relieving the pain of fibromyalgia. The Mayo fibromyalgia acupuncture study involved 50 fibromyalgia patients enrolled in a randomized, controlled trial to determine if acupuncture for fibromyalgia pain relief improved symptoms.

Symptoms of fibromyalgia in patients who received acupuncture significantly improved compared with the control group, according to the study.

"The results of the study convince me there is something more than the placebo effect to acupuncture," says David Martin, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the acupuncture article and a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist.
"It affirms a lot of clinical impressions that this complementary medical technique is helpful for patients."

Patients who received acupuncture for pain relief in fibromyalgia reported improvement in chronic fatigue and anxiety, among other symptoms. Acupuncture was well tolerated, with minimal side effects.

Another study however failed to show any improvement in fibromyalgia when acupuncture was added to the treatment regimen. In this study of 100 patients the aim was to see whether real acupuncture was more effective than sham acupuncture at treating fibromyalgia patients.

The researchers assigned patients to 12 weeks of twice-weekly treatment with either true acupuncture for fibromyalgia or 1 of 3 comparison groups. All 3 comparison groups were a form of sham acupuncture. All patients could continue whatever other treatments they had been using for fibromyalgia before the study started. The researchers collected patient ratings of pain after 1, 4, 8, and 12 weeks of treatment and at 18 and 24 weeks after treatment was over.

The results failed to show any benefit from acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture.²

¹.Reference: Martin DP, Sletten CD, Williams BA, et al. Acupuncture Improves Symptoms of Fibromyalgia: A Randomized, Controlled Trial. Abstract #1260-P130. Presented at the 11th World Congress on Pain, Sydney, Australia, Aug. 25, 2005.

^2.A Randomized Clinical Trial of Acupuncture Compared with Sham Acupuncture in Fibromyalgia Nassim P. Assefi, Karen J. Sherman, Clemma Jacobsen, Jack Goldberg, Wayne R. Smith, AND Dedra Buchwald Annals of Internal medicine 2005 143: 10-19

Resources


	Acupressure Atlas "Both the medical doctors authoring this book, have through painstaking thoroughness, explained and elucidated every point, meridian and technique to facilitate the reader to obtain expertise in this self-healing form of treatment." (Sheela Bhojwani, East and West Series, Vol. 50, No. 3, Mar 2008 )

	Acupressure Points "This is a very useful reference for anyone interested in playing an active part in healing themselves. Just look up your complaint (headache, nausea, etc) and the book provides several points that may help, along with a description of the points, their names and what they are specifically helpful for. The book also provides detailed instructions and photos to help you get the proper position of the points. Very easy to use and understand."

	See also: Acupuncture for Pain Acupuncture for Migraine Acupuncture Treatment