Acupuncture appears to be an effective and safe method to alleviate persistent myofascial head and neck pain.

2020 Complementary Therapies in Medicine The effectiveness of acupuncture in the management of persistent regional myofascial head and neck pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis Farag AM, Malacarne A, Pagni SE, Maloney GE.

Systematic Review Neck Pain

To investigate the impact of acupuncture on persistent myofascial head and neck pain, only randomized controlled clinical trials were considered. These studies were hunted in a variety of databases, including PubMed, Ovid Medline, Embase, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Library, in addition to a manual search. The main metric used for outcome measurement was the comparison of the mean pain intensity score on the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) between the acupuncture and sham-needling/no intervention groups. Additionally, safety data and adherence rate were looked into.

The key findings from the gathered randomized controlled clinical trials showed a decrease in the Visual Analogue Scale pain intensity scores in the acupuncture group when compared with the sham-needling/no intervention group. Only four trials were included in the concluding meta-analysis, which showed a substantial difference in pain intensity between the acupuncture and sham-needling/no intervention groups. Overall, the results demonstrated promising safety levels, evidenced by low side effects/withdrawal rates. However, the studies were inconsistent in the way they reported outcomes.

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Compared with other therapies, acupuncture at ST38 appeared to reach a better therapeutic effectiveness in improving the recovery of shoulder joint mobility.

2018 Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Acupuncture at Tiaokou (ST38) for Shoulder Adhesive Capsulitis: What Strengths Does It Have? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials Yang C, Lv TT, Yu TY, Wong S, Lu MQ, Li YZ

Systematic Review

The results of our meta-analysis revealed significant differences in acupuncture at Tiaokou (as sole treatment or in combination with shoulder acupoints) versus other therapies (acupuncture at shoulder acupoints, tuina, exercise of the affected shoulder, and oral NSAIDs) for the relief of shoulder pain. What is more, compared with other therapies, acupuncture at Tiaokou appeared to reach a better therapeutic effectiveness in improving the recovery of shoulder joint mobility.

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Acupuncture combined with physiotherapy or exercise was found to be more effective for frozen shoulder than physiotherapy or exercise alone in the short and long term.

2017 Physiotherapy Effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of shoulder pain: a systematic review of published randomised clinical trials A. Rubio M. Mansfield J. Lewis

Systematic Review Frozen Shoulder

Shoulder pain is a leading musculoskeletal pain complaint, and is responsible for high morbidity with marked impact on quality of life. Acupuncture is a modality commonly employed in the treatment of shoulder conditions; however, past systematic reviews investigating its effectiveness have been inconclusive, noting a paucity of good quality research. A new body of research has since been published, and is included within this review. The objective of this systematic review was therefore to investigate the current evidence base for the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of shoulder pain.

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Acupuncture relieves neck pain better than sham acupuncture and those who received acupuncture report less pain and disability at short‐term follow‐up than those on a wait‐list.

2016 Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews Acupuncture for neck disorders Trinh K, Graham N, Irnich D, Cameron ID, Forget M.

Systematic Review

For mechanical neck pain, we found that acupuncture is beneficial immediately following treatment and at short‐term follow‐up compared with sham treatments for pain intensity; at short‐term follow‐up compared with sham treatments for disability (NPQ); at short‐term follow‐up compared with inactive treatments for pain intensity; and at short‐term follow‐up compared with wait‐list control for pain intensity and neck disability improvement. Effects do not seem sustainable over the long term. Acupuncture treatments appear to be relatively safe.

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Moderate quality studies suggest that acupuncture is more effective than sham acupuncture for lateral elbow pain.

2014 BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies Acupuncture and moxibustion for lateral elbow pain: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials Gadau M, Yeung WF, Liu H, Zaslawski C, Tan YS, Wang FC, et al.

Systematic Review

All studies had at least one domain rated as high risk or uncertain risk of bias in the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results from three RCTs of moderate quality showed that acupuncture was more effective than sham acupuncture. Results from 10 RCTs of mostly low quality showed that acupuncture or moxibustion was superior or equal to conventional treatment, such as local anesthetic injection, local steroid injection, non-steroidal anti- inflammatory drugs, or ultrasound. There were six low quality RCTs that compared acupuncture and moxibustion combined with manual acupuncture alone, and all showed that acupuncture and moxibustion combined was superior to manual acupuncture alone.

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