Abstract
Plantar fasciitis is a common cause of heel pain. It has been suggested that some acupoints have a specific effect on heel pain. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy and specificity of acupuncture treatment for plantar fasciitis. Subjects were randomly assigned to the treatment group (n = 28) or control group (n = 25). The treatment group received needling at the acupoint PC 7, which is purported to have a specific effect for heel pain. The control group received needling at the acupoint Hegu (LI 4), which has analgesic properties. Treatment was administered five times a week for 2 weeks, with an identical method of manual needling applied to the two acupoints. The primary outcome measure was morning pain on a 100-point visual analog scale (VAS) at one month post-treatment. Secondary outcome measures included a VAS for activity pain, overall pain rating as well as pressure pain threshold using algometry. Significant differences in reduction in pain scores, favoring the treatment group, were seen at one month for morning pain (22.6 ± 4.0 versus 12.0 ± 3.0, mean ± SEM), overall pain (20.3 ± 3.7 versus 9.5 ± 3.6) and pressure pain threshold (145.5 ± 32.9 versus −15.5 ± 39.4). No serious adverse event was observed in either group. The results indicate that acupuncture can provide pain relief to patient with plantar fasciitis, and that PC 7 is a relatively specific acupoint for heel pain.
Highlights
Heel pain affects about 10% of the general population and it is commonly caused by plantar fasciitis [1]
Reasons for exclusion were: the onset of heel pain was
Two participants later withdrew from the study in the LI4 group, one after the first treatment session due to intolerance towards the pain associated with the treatment, and the other one after the third treatment session because the heel pain was not improving
Summary
Heel pain affects about 10% of the general population and it is commonly caused by plantar fasciitis [1]. A thorough literature survey in both Chinese and English electronic databases, including PUBMED, AMED and VIP (a database of Chinese scientific and technological journals), as well as journals of complementary medicine, such as eCAM, up to 2005, identified articles related to acupuncture treatment for heel pain [5]. The results from these were controversial, as one of the studies reported that acupuncture treatment was better than local steroid injection [7], whereas the other reported the opposite [6]. Based on current reporting standards [8], both studies lacked scientific rigor and we concluded that further research was necessary to establish the efficacy of acupuncture treatment for heel pain
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