Does kinesiotaping increase the efficacy of lidocaine injection in myofascial pain syndrome treatment? A randomized controlled study.

BACKGROUND

Myofascial pain syndrome is a common form of musculoskeletal disorder that originates from a painful site in a muscle or related fascia. There are various non-invasive and invasive treatment methods.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the efficacy of myofascial trigger point kinesiotaping with that of local anesthetic injection alone on the degree of pain and quality of life in myofascial pain syndrome.

METHODS

Seventy-six patients with myofascial pain syndrome were randomly assigned to three study groups. Group 1 (n= 26) received only local anesthetic (1 ml lidocaine of 0.5% for each trigger point) injection. Group 2 (n= 25) received local anesthetic injection + sham kinesiotaping. Group 3 (n= 25) received local anesthetic injection + kinesiotaping. Pain intensity was measured by visual analog scale (VAS) at baseline, immediately after treatment, and in the 1st and 4th week post-treatment. To evaluate the effect of treatment on quality of life, Short Form-12 (SF-12) was used at baseline and at 4th week post-treatment.

RESULTS

Group 3 showed significantly more improvement than other groups at post-treatment VAS, SF-12 physical component evaluations (p< 0.05). No significant difference was found between groups 2 and 3 in the mental component of SF-12 (p> 0.05), but the patients in group 3 performed significantly better than group 1 (p< 0.05). No significant difference was found between groups 1 and 2 in VAS, SF12 Physical Components Summary and SF-12 Mental Components Summary scores at post-treatment evaluations.

CONCLUSION

This study indicated that kinesiotaping may be useful to increase the efficacy of myofascial trigger point lidocaine injection in myofascial pain syndrome.