Acupuncture vs Sham Acupuncture to treat pain.
Woman having Acupuncture.
In this research review and meta-analysis they compared using acupuncture and sham acupuncture to treat musculoskeletal pain. Sham acupuncture is when they do fake superficial needling but not on real points(SANA), or they press the needle on real points but don’t break the skin(NPA), or the press the needle on fake points and don’t break the skin (NPNA). The results were interesting. They found that the True Acupuncture worked better than the all the Sham’s. However breaking the skin worked better than pressing on real points which in turn worked better than pressing of fake points! Thus suggesting there is effect to both putting the needle in the skin and the choice of real acupuncture points!