Can acupuncture relieve chronic neck pain?
Acupuncture hasn't been proven to relieve chronic neck pain any better than "fake" acupuncture does, in which the needles are only inserted into the very surface of the skin or at the "wrong" points.
Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese treatment in which thin needles are inserted into specific points on the skin. According to traditional beliefs, energy pathways (meridians) run through your body and can influence your body functions. It is thought that medical conditions can arise if these channels become blocked. To treat them, acupuncture needles are inserted into specific points along the meridians. But these energy pathways haven't been scientifically proven to exist, and there is some disagreement about where exactly the needles should be inserted.
It is also thought that acupuncture may relieve pain through other mechanisms. There is some evidence that inserting acupuncture needles causes pain-relieving chemical messengers to be released in the nervous system.
To find out whether acupuncture is actually an effective treatment for neck pain, good-quality scientific studies are needed. Studies can only deliver reliable results if they are set up as follows: A big enough number of volunteers are randomly divided into two or more groups. Each group has a different treatment, for instance acupuncture, physiotherapy, painkillers or a placebo (fake treatment). At the end of the study the groups are compared to see which of the treatments provided the best pain relief.
