Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder that involves widespread muscle pain, tenderness, fatigue, and other symptoms throughout your body. It’s not a form of arthritis, but like arthritis, it can interfere with a person’s ability to perform everyday activities. An estimated 5 million American adults have fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Between 80 and 90 percent of people with fibromyalgia are women, but men and children can also have this condition.
A person may have two or more coexisting chronic pain conditions. The exact cause of fibromyalgia is unclear, but may be related to injury, emotional distress, or viruses that change the way the brain perceives pain. Other symptoms of FMS include trouble sleeping, headaches, morning stiffness, painful menstrual periods, sensitivity to bright lights and loud noises.
Acupuncture is generally considered as a safe and effective treatment when performed by an experienced practitioner using sterile needles. However, improperly performed acupuncture can cause potentially serious side effects and damages to patients.
Patients should use Acupuncture in conjunction with physician’s care. It may take 5-15 treatments of acupuncture to make progress and improvements such as pain reduced, fatigue improved, sleeping better, etc.
A NIH grant RO1 was granted to Dr. Daniel Clauw, professor and Rheumatologist at Georgetown Medical School Hospital, and Dr. Xiaoming Tian, L.Ac., CMD, adjunct professor at Georgetown Medical School Hospital. This clinical trial was performed at Wildwood Acupuncture Center (WAC).
In fact, more than 600 patients with FMS were treated in WAC, most of them made progress as follows; pain reduced gradually, more energetic, more cheerful, and sleeping better.
FMS was documented in TCM textbook, called as “Deficiency and fatigue” symptoms, and Bi syndrome. Acupuncture points for FMS are chosen as follows: GV20, LI11, TE5, LI4, S36, Sp6, K3, G34, & G39.
Acupuncture treatment for FMS is one of the best treatments due to its efficacy and safety.
Call Dr. Ming at 301-530-5308 if you have further questions.
