ABSTRACT
Objective: To assess the effect of acupuncture on pain of patients with refractory trigeminal neuralgia (TN).Methods: Acupuncture was accomplished for 14 patients with refractory TN, 3 sessions in a week for 10 sessions. Every treatment session lasted about 30 min. The pain severity of patients was evaluated by visual analog scale (VAS) at days 0, 3, 7, 14, 21 and 1 month later as follow up. The data were analyzed by SPSS version 18.0. Results: The mean age of participants was (59.4±13.2) years old. The VAS points decreased from day 0 to the follow-up. As the results showed, the amount of VAS points decreased by acupuncture has emerged more significance in comparisons between days 0, 3 and days 14, 21, and the one-month follow-up, the differences in VAS points on the mentioned days were significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: Acupuncture can cause proper pain relief for refractory TN. Acupuncture can induce an analgesic effect after multiple repetitions of therapeutic sessions.