24/10/2024
Acupuncture can help relieve sciatica pain, new evidence confirms
Written by Robby Berman on October 22, 2024 — Fact checked by Jennifer Chesak, MSJ
New evidence supports the notion that acupuncture can help relieve the pain caused by sciatica. Image credit: Nabi Tang/Stocksy.
Acupuncture successfully reduced pain and disability for people with chronic sciatica in a randomized clinical trial in China.
Their improvement, compared to those receiving sham acupuncture, lasted for the entire 52-week trial.
The sciatica affecting participants in the trial was the result of a herniated spinal disc.
Acupuncture is used as a conservative treatment for sciatica worldwide, though clinical studies affirming its therapeutic value are scarce.
Leg pain and disability associated with chronic sciatica were significantly relieved by treatment with acupuncture in a randomized clinical trial compared to treatment with sham, or placebo, acupuncture.
Trial participants who received acupuncture experienced twice the reduction in pain and nearly three times the reduction in disability.
These benefits lasted the entire 52 weeks of the trial. No serious adverse events were reported for those receiving acupuncture, which took place at six hospitals in China.
Sciatica is a condition characterized by deep pain occurs in the back and/or legs. It is the result of a compressed sciatic nerve, which runs from the lower back to just below the knee.
Acupuncture is used worldwide as a treatment for sciatica, often successfully, as documented in a meta-analysis published in Frontiers in Neuroscience in 2023.
The new trial is an effort to provide clinical evidence of its efficacy. Its results appear in JAMA Internal MedicineTrusted Source.
For the trial, 216 individuals with chronic sciatica resulting from a herniated disc were treated either with 10 sessions of acupuncture or 10 sessions of sham acupuncture over a period of 4 weeks. Participants self-reported their conditions to assessors at weeks 2, 4, 8, 26, and 52.
The participants, outcome assessors, and trial statisticians were blinded to the type of acupuncture each individual received, although the acupuncturist themselves were not blinded.
