How to Ease the Pain of Fibromyalgia with Acupuncture or TENS

A new study suggests that people with fibromyalgia may benefit from acupuncture treatment. Fibromyalgia is a painful and chronic condition that affects soft tissue. It also causes fatigue, brain fog and sleep problems. Millions of Americans are affected by this somewhat mysterious condition. Depression and tender trigger points are common symptoms as well. Physical activity often intensifies the pain and exhaustion.

The Pain of Fibromyalgia Is Hard to Treat

Although doctors treat fibromyalgia with antidepressants or with a prescription drug-pregabalin (Lyrica), duloxetine (Cymbalta) or milnacipran (Savella)-people with fibromyalgia often continue to suffer. Other treatments, especially nondrug therapies with minimal side effects, would be very welcome.

Easing the Pain of Fibromyalgia with TENS and Physical Therapy

A study published in JAMA Network Open found that the combination of physical therapy and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, also known as TENS, can reduce pain (JAMA Network Open, March 27, 2026). Over 380 patients completed the trial. Volunteers were randomized to receive PT plus TENS or physical therapy alone. The TENS units were applied to the upper and lower back for two hours daily, with frequency modulating between 2 and 125 Herz for 100 to 180 microseconds. This was a strong but tolerable intensity.

After two months, those getting physical therapy plus electrical stimulation reported significantly less pain during movement than those in the PT-only group. Researchers asked the volunteers to sit and stand five times as quickly as possible, a task that causes pain in most people with fibromyalgia. More people in the group getting TENS along with their physical therapy considered their overall condition improved.

The authors note that

“The findings demonstrate effectiveness of this nonpharmacological intervention in reducing movement-evoked pain and suggest that the benefits of TENS are clinically meaningful in this population.”

Acupuncture for the Pain of Fibromyalgia

TENS is not the only nondrug modality that people with fibromyalgia have tried. Researchers in Seville, Spain, conducted a study on acupuncture a decade ago (Acupuncture in Medicine, Aug. 2016). It included 153 patients with a history of fibromyalgia. They were randomized to receive either simulated acupuncture or personalized acupuncture for 20 minutes. Both groups received nine weekly sessions.

In studying acupuncture, it is important to have a group that receives what appears to be acupuncture but actually is not. That way the researchers can compare the responses using the sham acupuncture group as controls. Acupuncture has a powerful placebo effect, and sham acupuncture is often surprisingly effective, regardless of the outcome being studied.

The Results of the Study:

Those receiving the real acupuncture needed less medication to treat the pain of fibromyalgia compared to the group receiving sham acupuncture. After 12 months, those who had received true acupuncture had improved their pain scores by 20 percent, compared to 6 percent for the control group.

The investigators conclude:

Individualised acupuncture treatment in primary care in patients with fibromyalgia proved efficacious in terms of pain relief, compared with placebo treatment. The effect persisted at 1 year, and its side effects were mild and infrequent. Therefore, the use of individualised acupuncture in patients with fibromyalgia is recommended.

Other Studies Support This Conclusion

An overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses mostly supported the use of acupuncture therapy to treat people with fibromyalgia (Frontiers in Medicine, Dec. 5, 2025). The authors complained that the available research is of low to moderate quality and called for “robust and well-designed studies.”

Nevertheless, their analysis revealed:

“AT [acupuncture therapy] was found to be superior to sham AT or standard pharmacological therapies (SPT) in treating FMS [fibromyalgia syndrome] and pain.”