Headache Relief With Acupuncture

By Betsy Golem, LAc, DiplAc

Meridian Healing Works

. http://www.meridianhealingworks.com/

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Headache Relief With Acupuncture

Anyone who gets headaches knows, they hurt. Felt at different places in the head, or all over the head, at varying levels of intensity and frequency, they can be disruptive to daily activities, and impact overall quality of life. People try to relieve headaches with a variety of methods, some with more success than others, but acupuncture has been shown to effectively relieve headaches long-term.
For some, headaches happen randomly with no apparent cause, while Spring and/or Fall brings sinus headaches for many allergy sufferers. Some women, at the time of their menstrual periods get cyclic headaches. Tension-type headaches may arise for those under a lot of stress and tension happening a few times a week to daily, and for others, certain foods, perfumes, cigarette smoke or stress can trigger migraine-type headaches a few times a week or multiple times a month.
The intensity of pain can vary widely. From dull achy, mild or moderate aching pressure, more intense constant sharper aching, to severe pounding, stabbing and debilitating, headache pain can be significant, sometimes triggering visual changes, nausea and vomiting. While acupuncture has been used for thousands of years to relieve headaches, in the last 10 years more solid, randomized, controlled research studies are confirming acupuncture's ability to help headache sufferers emerge from the weight of headaches to regain their quality of life.
Published this year in Harvard Health Publishing from Harvard Medical School was a 2012 meta-analysis of statistics from 18,000 participants in 23 well-done randomized controlled acupuncture research trials. These trials studied headaches and conclusively showed acupuncture effective for relieving headache pain, with minimal adverse effects.
But an even more conclusive study was done in China between 2012 and 2014 showing acupuncture's long-term effectiveness at relieving headaches. The results were published in the medical journal JAMA. The study utilized 249 patients having migraines without aura. Some were given five acupuncture treatments per week for four weeks, for a total of 20. Some were given sham acupuncture for the same period, and the control group was given no acupuncture. They were then followed for an additional 20 weeks. The researchers found participants showed a statistically significant reduction in frequency of headaches, severity of headaches, and need for medication.
Research has shown not all people respond to current medications, so acupuncture offers an alternative utilizing the body's own healing mechanisms to help people live better lives.