Neural therapy for fibromyalgia: Myth or improving quality of life?

Abstract

Background: Fibromyalgia is a common rheumatic disease, which is thought to be a neuroendocrine dysregulation disorder. Patients’ quality of life (QOL) is severely affected by this disease. Though neural therapy, as a treatment option, attempts to correct the underlying neuroendocrine dysfunction, yet there is no proven evidence of its effect on this disease. The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of neural therapy on pain and functionality in patients with fibromyalgia. Methods: The study was a 1-year retrospective cohort study and held in physical medicine and rehabilitation clinics. A total of 60 female patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia were included. Sixty female patients with fibromyalgia were included in this study. Patients were divided into two groups; the first group (n = 30) received neural therapy, the second group (n = 30) received conventional physical therapy and each of the two groups received the same home exercise (stretching, strengthening and aerobic exercises) programme for four weeks. The primer outcomes were visual analogue scale (VAS), Short Form-36 (SF-36) and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) scores after the treatment. Results: The social functioning score exhibited a significant improvement only in the intra-group comparison of the neural therapy group (P <.001). However, after treatment, the VAS, FIQ and all the SF-36 parameters, except role limitations because of physical health, were detected to be significantly improved in the neural therapy group compared with the exercise group (P <.001). Conclusions: Neural therapy may be an effective alternative treatment for improving the QOL in patients with fibromyalgia. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd