Relief of Low Back Pain Immediately after Acupuncture Treatment – a Randomised, Placebo Controlled Trial

Abstract

Background The purpose of this study was to examine the immediate effect of single acupuncture stimulation to the most painful point in patients with low back pain. Method Arandomised, evaluator-blinded, sham controlled clinical trial was conducted in which 31 patients with low back pain were randomly allocated to either an acupuncture group (n=15) or a sham acupuncture group (n=16). Both acupuncture and sham acupuncture were performed at the most painful point on the lower back of the subjects. For the acupuncture group, a stainless steel needle was inserted to a depth of 20mm and manually stimulated (sparrow pecking method) for 20 seconds, while for the sham treatment a guide tube without a needle was placed at the point and tapped on the skin. Changes in low back pain were evaluated with a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Schober test. Participants were also asked if they felt the needling sensation or not. The therapy and the evaluation were independently performed by two different acupuncturists. Results VA S score and the Schober test score showed significant improvement after treatment as compared with the sham group (P=0.02, 0.001, respectively). There were no significant differences in the needling sensation between the acupuncture and sham group. Conclusion These results suggest that acupuncture at the most painful point gives immediate relief of low back pain.

Imperfect placebos are common in low back pain trials: a systematic review of the literature

“…For simplicity, each comparison was treated as an individual trial. Trials reported on the following categories of interventions: acupuncture (10 trials) [25,42,73,74,85,95,99,104,106,128], back school (2 trials) [11,28], behavioural (7 trials) [10,21,62,111,130,132,133], electrotherapy (20 trials) [8, 15, 25, 27, 37, 49-51, 54, 57, 63, 69, 76, 77, 89, 94, 107, 122, 137, 143], exercise (10 trials) [29,37,43,48,50,59,67,116,131,136], heatwrap therapy (2 trials) [109,110], insoles (1 trial) [127], magnets (1 trial) [33], massage (1 trial) [116], neuroreflexotherapy (1 trial) [93] [16,117,129]. Trial characteristics are presented in Table 1.…”

Effects of acupuncture on quality of life and pain in patients with osteoporosis—a pilot randomized controlled trial: reply to comments by Moran et al.

“…Thanks for this very helpful note, the faulty citation is very unpleasant for us and we would like to correct this herewith. The correct citations in the section BStatistical analysis^are the ones mentioned above by Inoue [3] and Itou [4].…”

“…In our paper, we present the original sample size calculation as done for the study protocol. This calculation of the number of cases is based on the work of Inoue [3] and Itou [4]. However, according to the pilot character of the study after the end of the intervention phase, we revised our strategy for data analyses based on the large number of measurements over time and the additional 3-month follow-up.…”

The Effect of Acupuncture on Muscle Blood Volume and Oxygenation

“…Several studies have shown that acupuncture can be a useful modality for treating pain due to muscle spasms (Lundeberg et al, 1988: Sandberg et al, 2005: Inoue et al, 2006. It is believed that shoulder stiffness is caused primarily by restriction of blood flow to the working muscles where accumulated metabolites appear to activate sympathetic vasoconstrictors.…”