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.