Acupuncture and sham acupuncture reduce muscle pain in myofascial pain patients.
OBJECTIVE
To compare the effectiveness of dry needling in classically recognized acupuncture points ("acupuncture") with dry needling in skin areas not recognized as acupuncture points ("sham acupuncture") in reducing masseter muscle pain in a group of patients with myofascial pain of the jaw muscles.


METHODS
Eighteen patients were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 experimental groups: Ten patients received acupuncture and 8 received sham acupuncture. A visual analog scale (VAS) was used to measure changes in masseter muscle pain evoked by mechanical stimulation of the masseter muscle before and after the experiment.


RESULTS
Both groups showed a statistically significant reduction in VAS pain scores (P = .001). Seven out of 10 acupuncture subjects had a 10 mm or greater VAS reduction in pain, while 4 out of 8 of the sham acupuncture subjects had that great a pain reduction. There was no significant difference between the 2 groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Both acupuncture and sham acupuncture reduced pain evoked by mechanical stimulation of the masseter muscles in myofascial pain patients. However, this reduction in pain was not dependent on whether the needling was performed in standard acupuncture points or in other areas of the skin. These results suggest that pain reduction resulting from a noxious stimulus (i.e., needling) may not be specific to the location of the stimulus as predicted by the classical acupuncture literature.
Goddard
Greg
G
Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Nippon Dental University, Tokyo, Japan. goddard@itsa.ucsf.edu
Karibe
Hiroyuki
H
McNeill
Charles
C
Villafuerte
Ernesto
E
D015667:Acupuncture Analgesia; D015669:Acupuncture Points; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005157:Facial Pain / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010147:Pain Measurement; D013706:Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction Syndrome / Q000628:therapy*