If you've been living with persistent pain, you may have noticed that attitudes towards acupuncture have changed over the last decade. As more high-quality research has become available, clinical guidelines have gradually evolved alongside the evidence.

The UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is one of the world's most respected organisations for evaluating medical evidence and developing healthcare guidelines. In 2021, it recommended that healthcare professionals consider a course of acupuncture for adults living with chronic primary pain—persistent pain that cannot be fully explained by an underlying condition.

The recommendation followed a detailed review of the available evidence, which found that acupuncture can reduce pain and improve quality of life for some people with chronic primary pain. NICE also concluded that, when delivered appropriately in the community, acupuncture is likely to be a cost-effective treatment option.

This marked an important shift. Although NICE had previously withdrawn its recommendation for acupuncture specifically for low back pain in 2016, its 2021 guideline recognised that the evidence supporting acupuncture for chronic primary pain had become sufficiently strong to justify recommending it as part of routine care.

NICE is not alone. In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its first guideline on chronic primary low back pain, recommending a range of non-surgical treatments, including acupuncture, as part of a person-centred approach to care.

No guideline recommends acupuncture for every type of pain, and no treatment works for everyone. But together, these recommendations reflect an important change: acupuncture is increasingly recognised not simply as a complementary therapy, but as an evidence-informed option that may help some people living with persistent pain.

If you're wondering whether acupuncture may be appropriate for your particular condition, I'd be happy to talk through the evidence and whether acupuncture for injury and pain is likely to be a good fit for you.

References

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Chronic Pain (Primary and Secondary) in Over 16s: Assessment of All Chronic Pain and Management of Chronic Primary Pain (NG193). 2021.

World Health Organization. WHO Guideline for Non-surgical Management of Chronic Primary Low Back Pain in Adults in Primary and Community Care Settings. 2023.