Different Acupuncture Prescription To Improve Fibromyalgia Syndrome Patients' Quality Of Life : A Clinical Evaluation

Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) is a non-articular rheumatic disease. It is a common condition of chronically widespread muscular and skeletal pain, stiffness, fatigue, sleep disorder and emotional disturbance of unknown origin. The syndrome is characterized by clinical criteria that were designed to classify affected individuals who were being enrolled into research studies. The criteria include 2 simple components, on is widespread pain for at least 3 months and the other pain elicited by digital palpation with a pressure equivalent to 4 kg at 11 or more of 18 anatomically defined tender points.The most common approach to treatment of FMS in the field of western medicine is multimodal includes patient education, psychological support, physical modalities such as exercise, and medication. The perception that pain medications, with their potential risks, are not indicated in FMS because it is a benign condition has now been countered by the documentation of objective evidence that FMS patients are actually experiencing the pain they describe. Medication therapy of FMS has variously involved over-the-counter preparation, analgesics, and antidepressants, but patients seldom achieve complete relief from any kind of monotherapy.Chinese Acupuncture is an effective therapy to rheumatic, rheumatic-like, non-rheumatic muscular articular and skeletal pain syndrome with abundant samples clinical observation. 118 FMS cases involved in this study are divided into 3 groups: Chinese acupuncture group, trigger points group and medication group, i. e control group. The therapeutic results were evaluated with Pain Scale, Athens Insomnia Scale, Zungs Depression Scale, SF36v2 and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire to assess the improving of the quality of life (QOL) of the patients.The study results show that the therapeutic result of Chinese Acupuncture Group is 83% which has distinct differences from the other two groups that fall in 78% and 76% respectively (P<0.05). Theclinical assessments of relative scales also show differences statistically.Applying treatment on syndromes and diseases differentiation is a fundamental characteristic of Traditional Chinese Medicine. As FMS is a complicated syndrome involving pain, fatigue, insomnia and depression etc., a comprehensive acupuncture prescription considering main and secondary complaint shows its dominant advantage in the treatment course. Though a long term follow-up study is absent in this project, clinical practitioners still may benefit from the study idea.