12.  Acupuncture for Fibromyalgia

Video Transcript: Fibromyalgia is a chronic muscular skeletal syndrome characterized by wide spread or regional pain, tenderness and stiffness in the muscle, ligaments, tendons and the related connective tissues. The cause of this disorder is unknown, it most frequently affects the neck, shoulders, chest, legs and lower back, and the pain is generally accompanied by sleeping disorders, fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders and depression. Like rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, acupuncture has shown excellent effectiveness in controlling short-term Fibromyalgia pain. Today there have been a number of clinical trials about acupunctures for Fibromyalgia reported. Acupuncture has been shown to be able to relieve pain, increase pain threshold, improve global ratings and improve morning stiffness of Fibromyalgia symptoms. A consensus statement of NIH stated acupuncture is a sufficient adjunct method to treat patients with Fibromyalgia. In a recent clinical study, 50 patients diagnosed with Fibromyalgia for whom other symptom relief treatments were ineffective were applied in 6 sessions over 2 to 3 weeks following the treatments, symptoms of pain, fatigue and anxiety were most significantly improved in patients giving acupuncture. At 7 months post treatment, the patients symptoms of pain, anxiety and fatigue had returned to the base line levels and those patients experienced the largest improvement 1 month after the treatment.

 

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