From acupunc­ture to chi­ro­prac­tic, from mas­sage to med­i­ta­tion, alter­na­tive treat­ments are in great demand. That’s espe­cially true for peo­ple with pain-related ill­nesses such as fibromyal­gia. Alter­na­tive med­i­cine, includ­ing herbal ther­apy and home­opa­thy, it is used in place of con­ven­tional med­i­cine. These sys­tems are based on the belief that the body has the power to heal itself with mul­ti­ple tech­niques includ­ing those that involve the mind, body and spirit. Com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine is used together with con­ven­tional medicine.

For peo­ple with fibromyal­gia, some alter­na­tive treat­ments work well. That’s because holis­tic ther­a­pies influ­ence your total being. In that way, they may allow you to reduce your med­ica­tions and increase your nor­mal activities.

Study find­ings show that stan­dard acupunc­ture may be effec­tive in treat­ing some peo­ple with fibromyal­gia. Both biofeed­back and elec­troacupunc­ture have also been used for relief of fibromyal­gia symp­toms. How­ever, before you try alter­na­tive treat­ments, talk with your doc­tor. Check to see what lim­i­ta­tions might apply to you. Work­ing with your doc­tor, you can find an accept­able way to blend con­ven­tional med­i­cine with alter­na­tive treat­ments or nat­ural reme­dies. When you do, you may be able to increase rest­ful sleep and reduce your fibromyal­gia pain.
Can acupunc­ture treat fibromyalgia?

With acupunc­ture, a prac­ti­tioner inserts one or more dry nee­dles into the skin and under­ly­ing tis­sues at spe­cific points. Gen­tly twist­ing or oth­er­wise manip­u­lat­ing the nee­dles causes a mea­sur­able release of endor­phins into the blood­stream. Endor­phins are the body’s nat­ural opi­oids. In addi­tion, accord­ing to acupunc­ture prac­ti­tion­ers, energy blocks are removed. Remov­ing them is said to restore the flow of energy along the merid­i­ans, which are spe­cific energy channels.

Stud­ies show that acupunc­ture may alter brain chem­istry. It appears to do this by chang­ing the release of neu­ro­trans­mit­ters. These neu­ro­trans­mit­ters stim­u­late or inhibit nerve impulses in the brain that relay infor­ma­tion about exter­nal stim­uli and sen­sa­tions such as pain. In this way, the patient’s pain tol­er­ance is increased. One acupunc­ture treat­ment in some patients may last weeks to help alle­vi­ate chronic pain.
What is electroacupuncture?

Elec­troacupunc­ture is another way of stim­u­lat­ing the acupunc­ture points. It uses a nee­dle hooked up to small wires con­nected to very slight elec­tri­cal cur­rents. Heat — mox­i­bus­tion — and mas­sage — acu­pres­sure — can also be used dur­ing this elec­troacupunc­ture process.

Laser acupunc­ture is yet another off­shoot of this alter­na­tive ther­apy. It may occa­sion­ally be effec­tive for the treat­ment of carpal tun­nel syn­drome. While it uses the same points, there are no nee­dles involved.

There are pre­cau­tions to take if you want to try acupunc­ture. First, make sure you find a licensed acupunc­tur­ist who has a lot of expe­ri­ence. Also, make sure the acupunc­tur­ist uses only dis­pos­able needles.

There are mul­ti­ple styles of acupunc­ture. The style used depends on where the prac­ti­tioner stud­ied. For instance, Chi­nese acupunc­ture depends on larger bore nee­dles and the prac­ti­tioner may be more aggres­sive with mov­ing them. Japan­ese acupunc­ture uses thin­ner bore nee­dles with a rel­a­tively gen­tle approach. You’ll need to find the style that suits your fibromyal­gia needs.

How can chi­ro­prac­tic help fibromyalgia?

Chi­ro­prac­tic care is a very com­mon alter­na­tive treat­ment for fibromyal­gia pain. Peo­ple use it to treat pain of pres­sure points, back pain, neck pain, shoul­der pain, headaches, and pain from mus­cu­loskele­tal injuries. Chi­ro­prac­tic may be effec­tive for fibromyal­gia because it helps improve pain lev­els and increase cer­vi­cal and lum­bar ranges of motion.

Chi­ro­prac­tic is based on the prin­ci­ple that the body is a self-healing organ­ism. To reduce pain and increase heal­ing, the doc­tor of chi­ro­prac­tic uses spinal adjust­ments. The goal is to increase the mobil­ity between spinal ver­te­brae, which have become restricted, locked, or slightly out of proper position.

Chi­ro­prac­tors do this by using hand adjust­ments. With gen­tle pres­sure or stretch­ing, mul­ti­ple gen­tle move­ments of one area, or spe­cific high-velocity thrusts, the adjust­ments are said to help return the bones to a more nor­mal posi­tion or motion. This return is said to relieve pain and reduce ill health.
Can mas­sage ease fibromyal­gia pain?

With Swedish mas­sage, the prac­ti­tioner uses a sys­tem of long strokes, knead­ing, and fric­tion tech­niques. With these, the prac­ti­tioner mas­sages the more super­fi­cial lay­ers of the mus­cles. The mas­sage is com­bined with active and pas­sive move­ments of the joints.

Oil is usu­ally used to facil­i­tate the stroking and knead­ing of the body, thereby stim­u­lat­ing metab­o­lism and cir­cu­la­tion. The mas­sage ther­a­pist applies pres­sure and rubs the mus­cles in the same direc­tion as the flow of blood return­ing to the heart.

Deep tis­sue mas­sage may be help­ful for those with fibromyal­gia. The rea­son is ther­a­pists use greater pres­sure than is used in Swedish mas­sage. In so doing, they tar­get the deep lay­ers of mus­cle. Using a series of slow strokes and direct pres­sure, the ther­a­pist will strive to release chronic pat­terns of mus­cu­lar ten­sion. Some­times, the ther­a­pists use their elbows or thumbs to push hard into the deep­est grain of the mus­cle to reduce tension.

Neu­ro­mus­cu­lar mas­sage com­bines the basic prin­ci­ples of ancient Ori­en­tal ther­a­pies, such as acu­pres­sure and shi­atsu, with spe­cific hands-on deep tis­sue ther­apy. The goal is to reduce chronic mus­cle or myofas­cial (soft-tissue) pain.
How does biofeed­back work to ease fibromyalgia?

To indi­vid­u­al­ize the reduc­tion of stress in the treat­ment of fibromyal­gia, biofeed­back is often rec­om­mended. This mind/body relax­ation tech­nique uses elec­tron­ics to mea­sure stress-related responses in the body. The idea behind biofeed­back is that peo­ple can use infor­ma­tion about their body’s inter­nal processes to learn to con­trol those processes.

A con­sen­sus state­ment from the National Insti­tutes of Health indi­cates there is good evi­dence that biofeed­back might help relieve many types of chronic pain. For exam­ple, it might be use­ful in treat­ing ten­sion and migraine headaches. In one study at the Uni­ver­sity of South Alabama, 80% of chil­dren with migraines were symptom-free after receiv­ing inten­sive biofeed­back train­ing. In other research, some headache patients who were able to increase hand tem­per­a­ture using ther­mal biofeed­back also expe­ri­enced fewer and less intense migraine headaches.

How does biofeed­back work to ease fibromyal­gia? continued…

With biofeed­back, you are con­nected to a machine that informs you and your ther­a­pist when you are phys­i­cally relax­ing your body. Sen­sors detect mus­cle ten­sion, heart rate, breath­ing pat­tern, the amount of sweat pro­duced, or body tem­per­a­ture. Any one or all of these can let the trained biofeed­back ther­a­pist know if you are learn­ing to relax.

The instru­ments mag­nify sig­nals that you might not oth­er­wise notice. As a result, you can use this visual or audi­tory response to learn how to con­trol cer­tain bod­ily func­tions. The ulti­mate goal of biofeed­back is to use this skill out­side the therapist’s office when you are fac­ing real stressors.

With fibromyal­gia pain, you know the “real stres­sor” is the pain itself. Nev­er­the­less, other daily stres­sors can cause your fibromyal­gia to flare. What you want to do is respond in a healthy way to the chronic stres­sors. If learned prop­erly, elec­tronic biofeed­back can help you con­trol your heart rate, blood pres­sure, breath­ing pat­terns, and mus­cle ten­sion, poten­tially reduc­ing pain.
What is home­o­pathic medicine?

Home­opa­thy is a ther­a­peu­tic sys­tem of med­i­cine that started in the late 18th cen­tury. Home­opa­thy is based on the prin­ci­ple of “like cures like.” That means that reme­dies that would cause a poten­tial prob­lem in large doses will actu­ally encour­age the body to heal more rapidly if given in small doses. Prac­ti­tion­ers use small diluted for­mu­las of plant, min­eral, and ani­mal sub­stances to treat var­i­ous ail­ments. The hope is these for­mu­las will stim­u­late the body to throw off the offender.
Can herbal med­i­cine help fibromyalgia?

Herbal reme­dies have been used for gen­er­a­tions. They can be put in tea or soup or taken in other forms. While some herbal ther­a­pies have not been shown to have a spe­cific ben­e­fit for fibromyal­gia symp­toms, some patients have found improved sleep or more energy with herbal sup­ple­ments.
How can med­i­ta­tion help fibromyalgia?

With med­i­ta­tion, you allow your thoughts to take a break from daily ana­lyt­i­cal rou­tines and give sup­port to the spir­i­tual dimen­sion of life. When you med­i­tate, your body switches from the pump­ing “fight or flight” response to a calmer, more peace­ful mood. Stud­ies show that med­i­ta­tion pro­duces brain waves con­sis­tent with seren­ity and hap­pi­ness. Med­i­ta­tion pro­vides nour­ish­ment for your soul, sati­ates inner spir­i­tual hunger, and helps you to develop your abil­ity to pay atten­tion to all areas of life with­out dis­trac­tion.
What should I remem­ber if I want to try an alter­na­tive treatment?

It’s impor­tant to be openly dis­crim­i­nat­ing when choos­ing alter­na­tive treat­ments. The fact that some­thing is called “nat­ural” does not mean it is safe. Work­ing with your doc­tor, look for the alter­na­tive ther­a­pies that will best boost sleep and decrease pain. The right ther­apy can help get you on the healthy road again.