Friday, August 23, 2013

Shiatsu in the Management of Fibromyalgia


There has been an article in the “Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics” on the “Effects of shiatsu in the management of fibromyalgia symptoms: a controlled pilot study” (link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23830713). Mark the word manipulative!
Maybe you don’t know what shiatsu is. If you look up Wikipedia (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiatsu) you find: “There is no scientific evidence for any medical efficacy of shiatsu.” Bearing this in mind we’ll have a look at the study.

The authors concluded: “This pilot study showed the potential of Shiatsu in the improvement of pain intensity, pressure pain threshold, sleep quality, and symptoms impact on health of patients with fibromyalgia.” Wow! Great! You might want to shout out loud. But you’d better restrain yourself. The shiatsu group “received full-body Shiatsu twice a week for 8 weeks” - and the control group? The control group “received an educational booklet.” This isn’t science, this is manipulation. It simply isn’t a control group. You would have to do a sham shiatsu treatment for the same amount of time. 
Massage has a strong negative recommendation and reiki has a negative recommendation according to the German guideline for fibromyalgia.
I don't recomment shiatsu for the treatment of fibromyalgia. 

2 comments:

  1. Ich glaube kaum das mir das bei meiner Fibro helfen würde, allein die Vorstellung des Drucks, nein danke lieber nicht. Eine Massage geht schon nicht.

    Gruß
    Angelika

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  2. Even Dr. Walter Bishop sometimes takes a water melon as a control group.

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