Effectiveness of Dry Needling in Fibromyalgia Patients

CEU San Pablo University

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Fibromyalgia; Sleep Disorder; Chronic Pain; Depression; Fatigue; Anxiety

Treatments: Other: Dry needling

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04942444

CEU-0021

Details and patient eligibility

About

Patients with fibromyalgia (FM) complain of widespread chronic pain from deep tissues including muscles. Previous research highlights the relevance of impulse input from deep tissues for clinical FM pain. Deep dry needle stimulation is an invasive treatment modality used in the management of musculoskeletal pain. Its efficacy has been confirmed in the management of myofascial trigger points, so the purpose of the study is to determine if blocking abnormal impulse input with deep dry needling stimulation of tender point may decrease hyperalgesia, clinical pain and associated symptoms such as anxiety, depression, fatigue and improve the quality of life in FM patients.

Full description

Fibromyalgia (FM) is characterized by chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain that is often associated to other manifestations such as fatigue, sleep disturbances, anxiety and depression. FM diagnosis may be performed following the 1990 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) classification criteria that require a history of widespread pain for at least 3 months and tenderness in at least 11 of 18 defined tender points.

Dry needling is a broad term used to differentiate "non-injection" needling from the practice of "injection needling". In contrast to injection of an agent, dry needling utilizes a solid filament needle, as is used in the practice of acupuncture, and relies on the stimulation of specific reactions in the target tissue for its therapeutic effect. Is a relatively new treatment modality used by physicians and physical therapists worldwide as a part of complex treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain. It is minimally invasive, cheap, easy to learn, and carries a low risk of complications. Its efficacy has been confirmed in numerous studies and systematic reviews on management of myofascial trigger points, acute and chronic low back pain, chronic lumbar myofascial trigger points, lumbar myofascial pain, chronic whiplash, and myofascial pain and headaches.

The clinical picture of FM suggests an increased activity and/or hypersensitivity in nociceptive pathways or inadequate activity in endogenous pain attenuation mechanisms. Administration of local injections of lidocaine in the tender points is considered a therapeutic approach in the management of FM and this therapy increases plasma concentrations of met-enkephalin. FM patients treated with dry needling also experience a rapid increase of plasma levels of met-enkephalin. Results derived from randomized clinical trials and systematic reviews disclosed no differences between injections of different substances and dry needling in the treatment of myofascial trigger points symptoms. These findings suggest that needling techniques may be effective in the management of FM.

Taken together all these considerations, the primary aim of this study is to investigate the efficacy of dry needling as a complementary treatment of severely affected FM patients. In addition, the investigators, aimed to establish whether this procedure might still yield some clinical improvement 6 weeks after the discontinuation of this intervention.

Enrollment: 120 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients who had not responded to any of the previously used pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments.
• Literate and able to complete the questionnaires and scales used in the study.
• Patients who accepted their inclusion in the trial signed the corresponding informed consent and were given an explanatory sheet of the project.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with CNS involvement with or without treatment (stroke, Parkinson's, dementia, multiple sclerosis, etc.).
• Patients with inflammatory or autoimmune disease associated with Fibromyalgia.
• Patients with infectious, neoplastic disease, or parenteral drug use.
• Patients with insurmountable fear of needles
• Under 18 years of age
• Coagulation problems (including treatment with anticoagulants, due to the risk of bleeding).
• Immunosuppressed people (due to the risk of infection),
• Lymphadenectomized people (due to the risk of lymphedema)
• Hypothyroidism (due to the risk of myxedema)
• Pregnant patients
• Patients with areas of the skin that present some type of wound, infection, macula or tattoo.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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120 participants in 2 patient groups

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients from the control group kept on taking the same medical treatment that they received before randomization

Dry needling group

Experimental group

Description:

Besides maintaining their current medical treatment, patients from the experimental group received an additional weekly one-hour session of dry needling over the 18 tender points for a 6-week-period.

Treatment:

Other: Dry needling