The Relationship Between Lower Abdominal Temperature and Pain in Women With Dysmenorrhoea During Acupuncture

HUEI-WEN LIAU

Status: Completed

Conditions: Dysmenorrhoea

Treatments: Procedure: Bilateral SP6 acupuncture; Other: Lying on a clinical bed (LCB)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07845045

ETH21-6103

Details and patient eligibility

About

This clinical study examined the effects of acupuncture at Sanyinjiao (SP6) on menstrual pain and lower abdominal skin temperature in women with dysmenorrhoea. Participants first completed a 20-minute resting session without acupuncture, which served as the control condition. After a washout period of at least one day, participants received six bilateral SP6 acupuncture sessions over three consecutive menstrual cycles, with two sessions in each cycle.

Pain severity and lower abdominal skin temperature were measured immediately before and after the resting control session and each acupuncture session. In addition, peak menstrual pain on Day 1 and Day 2 was recorded during each of the three menstrual cycles in the acupuncture treatment phase and during three additional follow-up menstrual cycles after treatment. This allowed the study to examine both immediate changes in pain following acupuncture and longitudinal changes in peak menstrual pain across the treatment and follow-up periods.

The study also explored whether changes in lower abdominal skin temperature were associated with changes in pain severity, and assessed the safety and feasibility of the study procedures.

Enrollment: 30 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18 to 45 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Clinical diagnosis of dysmenorrhoea
• Female participants aged 18 to 45 years
• History of dysmenorrhoea for more than 3 months
• Able to provide informed consent

Exclusion criteria

• Pregnant, planning pregnancy, or lactating
• Use of an intrauterine contraceptive device
• Irregular menstrual cycles or bleeding disorders
• Serious life-threatening primary disease
• Unstable work or living conditions, or other factors likely to interfere with completion of treatment and follow-up

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

30 participants in 1 patient group

Lying on a clinical bed (LCB) followed by SP6 acupuncture

Experimental group

Description:

Participants first completed one 20-minute lying-on-a-clinical-bed (LCB) control session without acupuncture. After a washout period of at least one day, they received six bilateral SP6 acupuncture sessions over three menstrual cycles, with two sessions in each menstrual cycle. Each participant received both interventions in this fixed sequence and served as her own control.

Treatment:

Other: Lying on a clinical bed (LCB)

Procedure: Bilateral SP6 acupuncture