Acupuncture May Offer Drug-Free Pain Relief

In a 2012 analysis of 29 published studies involving more than 17,900 participants, researchers concluded that acupuncture has a definite effect in reducing chronic pain — more so than standard pain treatment. Real acupuncture also produced slightly better results than using sham needles, which suggests the benefits of needling are due to more than the placebo effect.

By going the extra mile and retrieving the raw data on self-reported pain, and standardizing the various study participants’ responses, they were also able to more accurately assess and compare them as a whole. Overall, the team discovered a “clear and robust” effect of acupuncture in the treatment of back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, osteoarthritis and headaches.
On a scale of zero to 100, participants who started out with a pain rating of 60 experienced an average 30-point drop (a 50 percent reduction) in response to the real acupuncture treatments (using needles); a 25-point drop when receiving sham acupuncture; and a mere 17-point drop when receiving "standard pain care" that did not include acupuncture. According to the lead author:4
"The effects of acupuncture are statistically significant and different from those of sham or placebo treatments ... So we conclude that the effects aren't due merely to the placebo effect."

References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Archives+of+internal+medicine%22%5BJour%5D+AND+2012%5Bpdat%5D+AND+Vickers%5Bauthor%5D&cmd=detailssearch
http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/11/acupuncture-may-help-reduce-chronic-pain-after-all/