Pujol Nuez, JesúsRamos-López, DanielBlanco Hinojo, Laura, 1981-Pujol, GuillemOrtiz, HéctorMartínez-Vilavella, GerardBlanch-Rubió, JosepMonfort Faure, JorgeDeus, Joan2019-11-112019-11-112019Pujol J, Ramos-López D, Blanco-Hinojo L, Pujol G, Ortiz H, Martínez-Vilavella G. et al. Testing the effects of gentle vibrotactile stimulation on symptom relief in fibromyalgia. Arthritis Res Ther. 2019 Jun 14;21(1):148. DOI 10.1186/s13075-019-1932-91478-6354http://hdl.handle.net/10230/42816BACKGROUND: Sensory disturbances in fibromyalgia extend beyond nociception. It has been proposed that imbalance in the mutual competition between painful input and non-painful sensory activity may, to a significant extent, account for the augmented subjective perception of pain. In this context, non-nociceptive somatosensory stimulation could arguably attenuate fibromyalgia symptoms by restoring the sensory balance. We specifically tested the effect of vibrotactile stimulation on symptom relief in fibromyalgia patients with a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, crossover clinical trial. METHODS: Seventy-seven female patients were randomized and data from 63 valid cases were analyzed. Active intervention involved extensive body stimulation with gentle mechanical vibrations administered during 3 h at night for 3 weeks, and the placebo effect was controlled using identical instruments to simulate an alternative treatment option. The primary outcome measure combined pain, fatigue, and complaints of poor cognition. RESULTS: Vibrotactile stimulation was significantly superior to sham in alleviating fibromyalgia symptoms globally. However, univariate analyses showed that the effect was not universal. Benefits were perceived on unpleasant somatic sensations such as generalized pain and fatigue, but not on poor cognition, anxiety, and depression. Vibrotactile stimulation was notably well tolerated and sleep quality significantly improved despite the fact that vibrations were administered at night. CONCLUSIONS: Results thus provide new evidence that non-nociceptive somatosensory stimulation may favorably act upon altered somatosensory balance in fibromyalgia. From a clinical perspective, both the degree of improvement and the easy application of our proposal would seem to support a potential role for vibrotactile stimulation in the symptomatic treatment of fibromyalgia.application/pdfengCopyright © The Author(s). 2019. Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13075-019-1932-9FibromyalgiaPainSensory balanceSomatosensory systemVibrotactile stimulationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess