Skin DC CES (Cranial Electrical Stimulation) has been shown to help central spinal pain (see other post). Now, 5 days of 20 minute daily treatment can drop pain scores from 8.5/10 to 5/10. Placebo effect? – not likely because stim over the wrong brain area had no persistent effect. This highlights how much FM is actually centrally generated pain
Arthritis Rheum. 2006 Nov 28;54(12):3988-3998 [Epub ahead of print]
A randomized, sham-controlled, proof of principle study of transcranial direct current stimulation for the treatment of pain in fibromyalgia.
Fregni F et al
abstract here
Saline soaked pads with anode (-) over C3 (half way vertex to ear on left) and cathode (+) on right supraorbital region – 2 Milliamp constant current run for 20 minutes. A placebo was put over the DLPFC area (more forward) and there was a group with just a sham treatment results are as follows:
These results are statistically significant P<0.0001