Acupuncture effective against chronic headaches

Main Category: Headache / Migraine
Article Date: 15 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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If you suffer from chronic headaches you should try acupuncture, say experts. In fact, they say it should be freely available on the National Health Service (NHS) of the UK.

Researchers found that patients who were treated with acupuncture experienced fewer days of headaches than other patients.

You can read about this in the British Medical Journal.

They found that patients who had acupuncture used fewer painkillers and saw their doctors less often than those who did not have acupuncture.

Recently, the UK government said that they would include alternative therapy on the NHS if it were proved to be effective.

401 people were monitored throughout the UK. They were people who had severe headaches for several days each week. They were randomly split into two groups. One group was on typical medication while the other group had 12 acupuncture treatments over three months.

The participants in the study had to complete a diary. They had to write their headache experiences daily for four weeks, then again at the end of three months and then again at the end of one year.

The acupuncture patients had 22 fewer headache days in one year, consumed 15% less medication and saw their doctors 25% less often than the patients who were not on acupuncture.

The researchers said that having acupuncture services nationwide would bring about significant long-term benefits for chronic headache patients. They said that the NHS should consider including NHS acupuncture services for headache.

Dr Mike Cummings, British Medical Acupuncture Society, said 'It is very positive for us. This should help to lift acupuncture out of what is seen to be alternative to mainstream medicine. I think acupuncture should be more widely available on the NHS - but with a huge rider, only in areas where it has been shown to have definite benefits. It is not a panacea for everything. It should be made available in primary care to treat pain and to prevent costly referrals to hospitals.'

He said that headaches, neck, shoulder and back pain and osteoarthritis in the knee are some of the conditions that respond well to acupuncture.

At the moment, only 10% of UK GPs either use acupuncture or refer their patients to an acupuncturist.

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