Comparison of Miniscalpel-needle Release, Acupuncture Needling, and Stretching Exercise to Trigger Point in Myofascial Pain Syndrome

Abstract

The effectiveness of MSN release for MPS is superior to that of acupuncture needling treatment or self neck-stretching exercises alone. The MSN release is also safe, without severe side effects in treatment of MPS.

Comparison of the Effectiveness of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation and Interferential Therapy on the Upper Trapezius in Myofascial Pain Syndrome

“…7,42 AROM exercise cause gentle stretching which reduces subcutaneous tightness by movements of superficial tissues over deep tissues and thus aiding joint movement. 7 Ma and his colleagues 34 compared the effects of miniscalpel-needle release, acupuncture needling, and stretching exercise to trigger point in individuals diagnosed with MPS and did not find improvements in cervical ROM after the two week stretching exercise. In contrast, a randomized controlled trial by Oliveira-Campelo and his team 43 found that stretching produced short and medium term effects on cervical ROM and pressure pain sensitivity in myofascial pain located in the upper trapezius muscle.…”

“…7,32 Participants were then provided with advice on correct posture (standing, sitting, sleeping, working) and treatment exercises (AROM, stretching, strengthening and scapular stability exercises for upper trapezius) to carry out at home each day until the completion of final measurement. [33][34][35] For each exercise, the participants were asked to perform one set of 10 reps three times a day. The patients were trained on correct posture and how to undertake exercises by the principal investigator at the end of the first treatment session.…”

Effects of Acupuncture on Sensory Perception: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Nine of these reported the PPT to be significantly elevated [33,40,41,43,51,64,78,79,83], and one study found no significant PPT increase [50]. Among the 26 studies (74.3%) that assessed the effectiveness of an acupuncture series, 18 (69.2%) showed a PPT increase after treatment [37,38,46,50,52,62,63,68,70,72,74,77,81,82,86,87,91,93] while six studies (23.1%) observed no effect of acupuncture on the PPT [22,27,[47][48][49]96]. The outcome of two studies was rated as unclear, because the analysis was performed by combining data of all groups [44,45].…”

“…One article reported a significant change of sensory thresholds after an inert control procedure [24]. All four studies evaluating acupuncture as an add-on treatment reported a significant additional effect [38,46,70,87]. In 48 studies (56.5%) one or several types of sham acupuncture treatments were used as controls.…”

“…Most common conditions under investigation were myofascial pain, associated with the occurrence of MTrPs (8 out 35, 22.9%) [33,38,41,48,50,63,70,83], fibromyalgia (7 out of 35, 20%) [37,44,45,72,81,82,87], chronic neck and back pain (5 out of 35, 14.3%) [22,46,49,74,77], temporomandibular disorder (5 out of 35, 14.3%) [40,43,68,79,91], and experimentally induced delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS; 4 out of 35, 11.4%) [27,47,51,78]. PPT was also used as an outcome measure for the treatment effect of acupuncture in tension type headache [52,93], osteoarthritis of the knee [86], abdominal scar pain [62], plantar fasciitis [96], and syringomyelia [64].…”