A small-scale trial was carried out by researchers from the Doña Mercedes Primary Health Centre in Spain on acupuncture treatment. The trial revealed that personalized sessions of acupuncture treatment have been successful in proving higher levels of relief to patients suffering from fibromyalgia as compared to relief given by fraudulent acupuncture sessions.

The relief provided by tailored acupuncture sessions extended up to one year subsequent to the treatment. However, an expert not associated with the trial feels that evidence of acupuncture’s evidence is limited. The personalized acupuncture sessions were formulated on the basis of Traditional Chinese Medicine diagnosis of fundamental problems like ‘Liver Qi stagnation’ or ‘Yin deficiency’.

“Doing so, it improves the results with the technique, as we demonstrate in our article where the result of the use of individualized acupuncture is far higher that standard acupuncture for these patients”, said Dr. Jorge Vas of the Pain Treatment Unit at Dona Mercedes Primary Health Center in Seville, the lead author of the study. The research involved 164 fibromyalgia patients, who were segregated into two groups.

Each group was given a 20-minute acupuncture session every week for none consecutive weeks. One group was given tailored acupuncture session while the other group was given fake acupuncture session without the use of needles. Patients who were not aware of this difference were asked questions and physically examined after 10 weeks, six months and a year.

The group that received personalized acupuncture session felt 41% relief after 10 weeks and 19% relief after a year. Meanwhile, the group that received sham treatment felt 27% and 9% relief after 10 weeks and one year, respectively. It is difficult to determine the difference between the actual and fake acupuncture sessions because even in fake sessions, patients are given personalized consideration from an acupuncture expert. These fraud sessions do have some impact of their own.