Manual acupuncture for analgesia during electromyography: a pilot study.

Abstract

To evaluate the analgesic effect of acupuncture for needle electromyography and to validate a sham acupuncture needle. Randomized, double-blinded, controlled study. University-based electrodiagnostics laboratory. Fifty-one subjects referred for electrodiagnostic evaluation. Before the electromyography examination, either real acupuncture needles or telescopic sham needles were applied. Visual analog scale of pain and unpleasantness after 3 muscles were examined with electromyography. Pretest pain was subtracted to give a measurement of pain attributable to the electromyography. Subjects were asked which needle they thought they had received. Twenty-six subjects were randomized to the treatment group and 25 to the sham group. Pain in the treatment group (-.96) was less than in the control group (9.68), but it was not statistically significant (P=.13). Post hoc analysis, excluding 5 subjects known to have been treated by the novice acupuncturist, showed a significant difference of 14.4mm (P=.02). The proportion of subjects who thought they received real needles in the acupuncture group (69%) did not differ from the proportion in the control group (48%) (P=.13). Acupuncture may represent an effective form of analgesia for electromyography. This is the first study to suggest independently the telescopic sham acupuncture needle as an effective control.