THE’acupuncture would be effective in relieving chronic pain and fatigue symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia, according to the results of a study published in the medical journal Journal of NeuroImage. 8 acupuncture sessions would reduce chronic pain in these patients by 50%.
Researchers at the University of Michigan (United States) studied the brain by medical imaging of 20 patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia, suffering from chronic pain to understand the short and long term effects of traditional Chinese acupuncture against “placebo” acupuncture treatment, for 4 weeks.
Acupuncture Reduces Fibromyalgia Pain
The findings of this study showed that theacupuncture allowed an increase in the MOR signaling pathway in several areas of the brain, the cingulate cortex, the insula, the caudate nucleus, the thalamus, and the amygdala and this modification persists in the long term.
The researchers also found that treated patients reported 50% reductions in pain.
“These results suggest that acupuncture by acting on the MOR signaling pathway helps to dampen pain signals and soothe pain in fibromyalgia,” explains Richard Harris of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan.
“While opioid pain relievers, like morphine, codeine, and other drugs, also work by binding to these opioid receptors in the brain and in the spinal cord, acupuncture, by increasing the binding availability of these receptors. is also associated with better efficacy of these drugs, ”concludes Richard Harris of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan.
Fibromyalgia, a painful disease
The fibromyalgia is a disease that affects between 2 and 5% of the French population, the diagnosis of which is currently difficult to make, its main symptoms also being present in other diseases. In fact, fibromyalgia is “a bilateral diffuse spontaneous musculoskeletal pain condition that has been evolving for more than 3 months associated with the presence of a minimum of 11 tendino-muscular points out of 18 listed.” Fibromyalgia means “fibro” for fibrous tissue. , tendons; “myo” for muscle; “pain” for pain. “.
Read also:
Fibromyalgia: a blood test to detect it?
Poor sleep would promote fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia: the pathology finally explained
