TENS can be wonder for Fibromyalgia Pain|Study

Fibromyalgia sufferer can get significant pain improvement by using TENS, finds a new study. Fibromyalgia is the most common cause of pain on the upper back and even worse it cn lead to a headache. Fortunately, we already use TENS for fibromyalgia in our regular practice and this study further establish the effectiveness of TENS.

The recent study published online on Arthritis & Rheumatology reveals the effectiveness of TENS on fibromyalgia. In this article, we will try to understand the research methodology and what made researchers conclude this.

Your upper back pain may be fibromyalgia

In my clinical practice, I have found that almost all upper back pain between two shoulder blades, on the side of the neck is due to fibromyalgia. Though it also affects other muscular parts of the body.

Fibromyalgia is characterized by pain and fatigue, particularly during physical activity. It is dull aching pain that spreads around and it’s very difficult to tell the origin of pain.

Actually, there occurs knot formation on the muscle bulk which is also known as muscle knots. These are hypersensitive points that usually remain dormant and with day activity it becomes activated resulting in pain.

In one of our articles, we have already discussed in detail muscle knots, now let’s jump to the research methodology. TENS which is the short form of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation is an integral part of electrotherapy used to treat pain like sciatica, and neuralgia.

Research methodology

The researchers recruited women of 18 to 70 years of age who had a history of suffering from fibromyalgia.

All these participants were randomly assigned to receive any one of the three treatment procedures using a TENS unit.

1. Active-TENS (n=103),
2. PlaceboTENS (n=99) or
3. No-TENS (n=99).

They were all instructed to use it at home 2h/day during activity for 4- weeks. TENS was applied to the lumbar and cervicothoracic regions using a modulated frequency (2-125Hz) at the highest tolerable intensity.

The participants were then instructed to rate movement-evoked pain (primary outcome) and fatigue on an 11-point scale before and during the application of TENS.

The scientists were looking for the following outcome:

• The primary outcome was movement-evoked pain and
• Secondary outcomes were resting pain, fatigue, function, disease impact, quality of life, fear of movement, and other psychological factors.

Result

After 4-weeks, the active-TENS group reported a greater reduction in movement evoked pain and fatigue than placebo-TENS. A greater percentage of the active TENS group reported improvement on the global impression of change when compared to placebo-TENS.

There were no TENS-related serious adverse events and less than 5% of participants experienced minor adverse events from TENS.

What does it mean for us

Among women with fibromyalgia and stable medication, 4-weeks of active-TENS use compared with placebo-TENS or no-TENS resulted in a significant improvement in movement-evoked pain and other clinical outcomes.

In addition to this, exercises and physiotherapy for fibromyalgia are very important. Learn different exercises for upper back pain due to fibromyalgia by visiting here.

Resource:

Dailey, D.L., Vance, C.G., Rakel, B.A., Zimmerman, M.B., Embree, J., Merriwether, E.N., Geasland, K.M., Chimenti, R., Williams, J.M., Golchha, M., Crofford, L.J. and Sluka, K.A. (2019), A Randomized Controlled Trial of TENS for Movement‐Evoked Pain in Women with Fibromyalgia. Arthritis Rheumatol. Accepted Author Manuscript. doi: 10.1002/art.41170

Sunit. S. Ekka

Dr Sunit Sanjay Ekka is a physiotherapist in practice for the last 15 years. He has done his BPT from one of the premium Central Government physiotherapy colleges, ie, SVNIRTAR. The patient is his best teacher and whatever he gets to learn he loves to share it on his Youtube channel and blog.