Complementary and integrative health approaches used for pain management by U.S. adults with [ME/CFS]: Findings from the 2022..., 2025, Driscoll et al

[rvallee]

Complementary and integrative health approaches used for pain management by U.S. adults with [ME/CFS]: Findings from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1876382025000150

Highlights

• Limited research on pain management for chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME)
• U.S. National Health Interview Survey data were examined
• 32.3% reported complementary/integrative healthcare (CIH) for pain management
• Females were more likely to use CIH approaches for pain relative to males
• Findings highlight an area for CFS/ME pain management treatment dissemination

Abstract

Introduction
While most persons with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) experience pain, traditional pain treatments may be harmful or unfavorable to this population. Complementary and integrative health approaches for pain management offer a potentially important alternative. However, there is a paucity of research regarding which pain treatments patients with CFS/ME use. This study examined the prevalence of pain-related complementary and integrative health usage in CFS/ME adults and the factors that may be associated with usage, such as sex and anxious and depressive symptoms.

Methods
Using 2022 U.S. National Health Interview Survey data, seven different complementary and integrative health approaches were examined. Survey weights and variance estimation variables were utilized, and Rao-Scott chi-square test examined group-based differences.

Results
A total of 453 individuals (1.6%) reported currently having CFS/ME. About one third (32.3%) of the CFS/ME sample reported using complementary and integrative health approaches for pain management. The most commonly reported treatments were meditation (15.1%), chiropractic care (14.5%), and massage (10.7%). Females with CFS/ME were significantly more likely to use pain-related complementary and integrative health approaches relative to their male counterparts (39.2% vs. 24.4%, respectively; χ2 (1) = 8.18, p = 0.004). Usage in pain-related complementary and integrative health approaches did not differ significantly among those with or without clinically elevated anxious or depressive symptoms.

Conclusions
Overall, persons with CFS/ME appear to use pain-related complementary and integrative health modalities at a lower rate relative to the general population. Although complementary and integrative health use was common, over half of the sample were not using these modalities, highlighting an opportunity for broader dissemination for pain management purposes.

 

[rvallee]

Somehow, an NIH study published in 2025 uses the term CFS/ME. Weak. Like the absolutely odd conclusions that we should do more alternative medicine because reasons.

 

[Utsikt]

Although complementary and integrative health use was common, over half of the sample were not using these modalities, highlighting an opportunity for broader dissemination for pain management purposes.

Thank goodness these people could help the alternative providers with writing a business case.

 

[Hutan]

I'm reminded of the story* that Mao promoted 'Traditional' Chinese Medicine when it was clear that enough doctors were not available to meet the health care needs of the Chinese population. I don't know whether it is true or not but it's a plausible story. This paper seems like that.

I am astonished that a government in then 21st century is promoting these sorts of therapies.

*Talked about here in 2013 in Slate
https://slate.com/technology/2013/1...mao-invented-it-but-didnt-believe-in-it.html#

In case you missed it, Oct. 7–13 was designated Naturopathic Medicine Week, according to a Senate resolution sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski and passed by the Senate with unanimous consent. Among the reasons the Senate cited:

• Naturopathic physicians can help address the shortage of primary care providers in the United States.
• The profession of naturopathic medicine is dedicated to providing health care to underserved populations.
• Naturopathic medicine provides consumers in the United States with more choice in health care.

Mikulski and the rest of the Senate may be surprised to learn that they were repeating 60-year-old justifications of Chinese medicine put forward by Chairman Mao. Unlike Mikulski, however, Mao was under no illusion that Chinese medicine—a key component of naturopathic education—actually worked. In The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Li Zhisui, one of Mao’s personal physicians, recounts a conversation they had on the subject. Trained as an M.D. in Western medicine, Li admitted to being baffled by ancient Chinese medical books, especially their theories relating to the five elements. It turns out his employer also found them implausible.

“Even though I believe we should promote Chinese medicine,” Mao told him, “I personally do not believe in it. I don’t take Chinese medicine.”

Mao’s support of Chinese medicine was inspired by political necessity. In a 1950 speech (unwittingly echoed by the Senate’s concerns about “providing health care to underserved populations”), he said:

Our nation’s health work teams are large. They have to concern themselves with over 500 million people [including the] young, old, and ill. … At present, doctors of Western medicine are few, and thus the broad masses of the people, and in particular the peasants, rely on Chinese medicine to treat illness. Therefore, we must strive for the complete unification of Chinese medicine. (Translations from Kim Taylor’s Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-1963: A Medicine of Revolution.)​

For Mao, as for the Senate, health care policy also reflected national ideology. While the Senate resolution praised naturopathic medicine as providing “consumers” with “more choice” (does it get more American than that?), Mao emphasized “complete unification,” a grand dialectical Marxist synthesis of Chinese medicine and Western medicine. “This One Medicine,” exulted the president of the Chinese Medical Association in 1952, “will possess a basis in modern natural sciences, will have absorbed the ancient and the new, the Chinese and the foreign, all medical achievements—and will be China’s New Medicine!”

 

[Trish]

Lots of people use x as treatment for y. Therefore we should tell lots more people suffering from y to use x as treatment.

So that's all right then. Problem solved. Roll out the LP, ear seeds, brain retraining, Mr X patented diet, Ms Y super massage, Sir W cbt ... what could possibly go wrong?