Can acupuncture help headaches?

Results of recent clinical trials have shown that acupuncture can be extremely effective for combating headaches. Increasingly, people are looking for alternative therapies. However, most are still happy to take pills prescribed by their Doctor. But there is a growing problem with the conventional treatment of headaches.

The problem with conventional medicine.

The truth is that conventional medications are just not that great at treating headaches. Some are known to work well for migraine headaches and others can be effective for tension headaches. The biggest problem with these medications is that they can change a migraine into a Chronic Daily Headache – or CDH, which is much harder to treat.

CDH is on the increase. The current definition of CDH is one that happens on 15 or more days out of a month. It is ironic that a medication developed to treat one kind of headache, seems to cause the development of another kind. It’s this dilemma that has prompted both Doctors and patients to look for alternative therapies. Many kinds of headaches are known to have triggers, such as lack of sleep and some kinds of foods. Often, the headache sufferer can avoid these triggers – but it is not always possible. So if medications are ultimately counter-productive and triggers are sometimes unavoidable, what can be done?

Taking a look at acupuncture.

Acupuncture has been a form of therapy in China and other Eastern civilizations for over 5,000 years.

It works by the insertion of very fine needles into particular points of the body. They are then left there for a few moments or sometimes even hours.

Oriental medicine believes that the energy force of the body, or Qi (chee), can become unbalanced. By placing needles at the specific places where the energy lines appear near to the skins surface, the Qi may be rebalanced, healing the patient.

Although acupuncture has been healing people for such a long time, it is only recently that its effectiveness for treating headaches has been studied in depth.

Does it work?

The British Medical Journal published a study of sufferers in the UK who often lost time off work due to their headaches. It showed that after these people had received acupuncture for three months, they took less sick days. Another study conducted at the University of North Carolina showed that sufferers of CDH found definite improvements in their headaches.

Hidden benefits.

Two studies in Germany threw up an interesting result. Acupuncture did help tension and migraine headaches - compared to those sufferers who had no acupuncture. But there was no particular difference in results between ‘real’ acupuncture and placebo acupuncture – where needles were only just inserted and into areas not known to have any benefit. So were the good results due to suggestion or was the fake acupuncture tapping into some true but not understood benefit?

Whatever the reasons for the results, acupuncture seems to be a non-harmful method of headache treatment, with no side effects. The study results were good enough to convince The National Heath Service in Britain. As a result of the findings, many GP Practices in the UK now offer acupuncture as an alternative therapy.