Acupuncture may not help in fibromyalgia

Acupuncture appears to relieve the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia no better than sham acupuncture procedures. The investigators found that people who received acupuncture for fibromyalgia twice per week for 12 weeks did not report a decrease in pain than people who received acupuncture designed for a different condition, needles inserted into random locations, or simulated acupuncture without needles. Fibromyalgia is a disorder marked by widespread muscle pain and tenderness, fatigue and sleep problems. People suffering from this disease have pain or tenderness in a number of specific tender points on the body. The cause of fibromyalgia is unknown, but researchers generally believe that people with the condition have amplified pain signals due to abnormal sensory processing in the central nervous system. Nine out of 10 people with fibromyalgia say they use at least one type of alternative medicine, including acupuncture. To investigate how well the treatment might have worked for this condition, researchers asked 100 people with fibromyalgia to try acupuncture or sham forms of the treatment, and to rate their pain levels up to 6 months after treatment. Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle found that there are many possible explanations for why the acupuncture may not have worked. The treatment may not have been customized enough for each patient's needs. Participants also had fibromyalgia for a long time, making them among the most difficult patients with this condition to treat. No differences in pain were identified between acupuncture and sham acupuncture. Additional research should investigate how well acupuncture treats other types of chronic pain, and the effectiveness of other forms of alternative medicine in fibromyalgia.