The aim was to see if acupuncture could be offered as part of a pelvic pain multi-modal conservative therapies plan within a busy NHS department, to good effect. The department sees high numbers of women with both pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain and women with non-pregnancy related persistent pelvic pain. Both sets of women often attend the GP, midwives (in the case of pregnancy), emergency department and physiotherapy in search of support and pain resolution. This pilot was part of a multi-modal approach to improving outcomes in a service that has limited options to refer elsewhere.

This pilot study sampled 17 women presenting with ongoing, significant pelvic pain impacting their ability to function and quality of life. They were referred for acupuncture when other physiotherapeutic techniques, advice and lifestyle measures were not making significant impact on their symptoms.
One physiotherapist, trained in acupuncture for pelvic health, set aside weekly slots ready to accept women for acupuncture sessions as soon as they were referred. This was to reduce waiting times and aimed to increase adherence, attendance and the beneficial impact of a multi-modal approach.

Out of 17 women who were part of the pilot study, 13 saw an improvement on their visual analogue scale for pain reporting. The highest improvement was rated as 8/10 to 0/10. The mean average rating pre-treatment was 6.3 and the mean average rating post-treatment was 4.2.

The results are encouraging and support acupuncture use in complex pelvic pain management that is not responding well to other approaches. This is an opportunistic, small study designed to influence best practice within one Trust but the study could now be taken to the next level to collect more data over a longer period of time.
The participants included women with severe pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain and non-pregnant women with persistent pelvic pain of other origins. It would be helpful to analyse groups separately when there are larger participant numbers.

The results support acupuncture as being worth considering as part of a multi-modal approach to managing complex pelvic pain in women as part of a conservative package of care. Further research would be required to produce substantive conclusions.