Fibromyalgia Support Group

I had an acupuncturist in the previous state that I lived in and she worked wonders!
I had to move to SC and the lady I'm working with now hasn't been able to help me a lick.
The former was only one of two in town - the only woman.
The latter I picked after looking at several local acupuncturist's webpages and seeing which "felt" right.
My suggestion would be to try one and if after no more than eight sessions you are not feeling at least somewhat better, leave. It may be that you need to try again with a different one.

I have had some degree of success with accupuncture but only in my shoulder blades, not my hips where the pain is the worst.

The person I saw was trained in China. She explained to me that she went to school for 5 years before she was able to insert her first pin into a patient and it took another 5 years for her to fully learn everything. She explained to me that there are over 500 pressure points to learn and that most trained in North America only learn the main basic points (about 50).

Another thing I learned from her is that this is a TREATMENT and requires numerous sessions. She likened it to taking antibiotics whereby you won't feel better at the first dose but will notice a difference with each does thereafter. It took me 7 treatments to heal the pain in my shoulders and you know, I've never had that pain to that degree again.

In my opinion, you can't dismiss a treatment that has been in use for thousands of years.

Here is what I felt when I went for my treatments... She would press areas until she found the trigger point. Then she would gently tap the pin into the area. I would close my eyes and if she had the right spot, I could feel the "knot" suck the needle in! If I did not have that sensation, she would try again. She would insert about 8 needles in and then she attached wire to the end of them that would vibrate, similar to a TENS machine (Dr. HO??). This brings deeper stimulation into the knot and help to get circulation into the area. She would leave this for about 20 minutes and then she would follow with a chinese style massage (which she explained differs greatly from Swedish massage that we are all familiar with).

Everyone has different symptoms of fibro, along with different degrees of pain, therefore different treatments will not affect everyone the same. I say try it, but make sure the person you go to see is oriental and trained in China.

I was just wondering the same thing today..glad you posted this.

I believe the accupuncture works if you also have chronic myofascial pain because it helps to release trigger points. If you don't have muscle problems, it may not be all that useful. I would be very interested to know if the treatment work on people with fibro that don't have chronic myofascial pain.

I found a good therapist at the UCLA clinic for East/West medicine. You would be better finding a therapist closer to you because, if your like me, you may need to go many times before you respond to treatment. For me, it was the first thing that really seemed to help.

Hope this helps, db

I went to an acupuncturist last winter for 2months. I experienced some relief in the bad headaches that I would get, but not much for the general muscle pain and everything else. I think that it is going to be a different experience for everyone though. I'm glad that I tried it even though it ended up not doing too much.

Thank you for helping. i feel encouraged to try this. I have myofasial pain and neck problems, and sciatica, chronic pain for 5 years. I checked on cost at one place but found the price expensive. 100 an hour! But thanks and I want to find a place with reasonable prices.

There is a credentialing association - their website is http://www.nccaom.org/find/index.html and there is a "Find Practitioner" feature on the upper right hand side.

The acupuncture practitioner who spoke to the local support group explained that this is a very important part of finding someone qualified.

Good luck - I'm going to try it soon also. I have myofascial pain along with FMS so I'm hoping I can get some relief at least for the MPS symptoms. I'm a bundle of knotted muscles.

peace to you too. I am reading stuff on the website you gave me. appreciate your help.
Have a better day. xoxo