| [Objective]As technology continues to advance,followed by changes in modes of works and daily habits,back pain has become a common symptom. According to statistics, lower back pain is the second most common main complaint, and Myofascial Pain Syndromes(MPS)is the most common among such diseases. Because this disease recurs easily and is readily induced by other back-related diseases,many patients suffer from MPS. The main c] inical symptoms of MPS include chronic blunted pain, numbness, cramps, and motor impediment. The specific point of pain is the increase of pain during mornings and evenings. Sustained inactiveness or over-activeness can both induce the pain. The history of pain will be long and full of recurrences. Tiredness and climatic changes can also lead to the pain. These features seriously affect the quality of life of a patient. Those who suffer from more serious level of pain may not even be able to conduct their daily activities. At present, while clinical researches abound and are effective to an extent, including acupuncture, accupotomology, massage, acupressure, Chinese herbal treatment, and physical therapy, most therapies take a long time and require a patient’s persistent treatment to achieve maximum effect. Also, because pain and discomfort recur often, MPS patients have to spend a lot of time and money on the pain, decreasing the quality of life and exhausting medical resources. Silver needle acupuncture has such advantages as fast effectiveness, short treatment period, few sessions of treatment, and wide range of treatment, providing a better choice of therapy against the recurring and chronic characters of MPS. This study, through clinical observation, will look into the short-, mid-, long-term therapeutic effects of the silver needle acupuncture for MPS, compare them with the commonly applied iontophoresis, and further the scientific understanding of the silver needle acupuncture.[Method]The 85 patients of MPS are randomly divided into the treatment group and the control group,45 in the treatment group and 40 in the control group. The treatment group is treated with the silver needle acupuncture and the thermometric element. The treatment is conducted once to twice, with an interval of a week between treatments. The control group is treated with Chinese medical iontophoresis. Every course includes five treatments, and once per day. Both the treatment group and the control group are evaluated by their treatment effectiveness before the treatment, a week after the treatment, six weeks into the treatment, and three months after the treatment. Assessment is based on Visual Analogue Scale:VAS and RMDQ (Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire to observe the differences after the treatments and to compare the differences of the two groups.[Results]The VAS values of the treatment group before and after the treatment are 6.82±1.84,4.36±1.52,3.04±1.45 and 2.77±1.54 (P＜0.05). The VAS values of the control group before and after the treatment are 6.45±1.52,4.40±1.84,4.20 ±1.83 and 4.78±2.20 (P＜0.05). The RMDQ scores of the treatment group before and after the treatment are,11.66±5.00,7.18±4.69,4.58±3.24 and 4.36±3.53 (P＜0.05). The RMDQ scores of the control group before and after the treatment are10.35±5.87,6.90±5.26,6.80±4.97 and 7.33±5.39 (P＜0.05).The overall effectiveness of the treatment group after three months of treatment is 95.56%; the overall effectiveness of the control group after three months of treatment is 50%。[Conclusion]1. Both the silver needle acupuncture and iontophoresis are effective against MPS, with the silver needle acupuncture having better effectiveness three months after the treatment.2. The silver needle acupuncture’s short-, mid-, and long-term treatment is more stable with less recurrence rate; iontophoresis’s short-and mid-term effects are better, but long-term effect is unfavourable with high possibilities of recurrence.
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