Acupuncture for Migraines and Headaches

Jill walked into our office a few months ago with a week-long migraine. As I found out, that’s not unusual for her. Now in her 70’s Jill has been suffering from migraines since she was a teen. Doctor after doctor couldn’t figure out why. She tried cutting out trigger foods, reducing stress, and going on birth control to “balance her hormones”. Sometimes the interventions would help for a little while, but then the migraines would come back with a vengeance.

Jill read a few acupuncture studies that claimed success with treating migraines, so she thought she’d give it a try. If you’re a one of the 1 in 7 Americans dealing with migraines or headaches, you might find the research fascinating like I do.  So, I’ve summarized a few of the latest clinical trials and meta-analyses for you here.

Acupuncture Reduces Frequency of Migraines

This article is a Cochrane review of 22 randomized controlled trials carried out from 2008-2016. They looked at studies that compared acupuncture with no acupuncture, acupuncture with “sham” acupuncture, and acupuncture with prophylactic medications. 

A quick note about “sham acupuncture”. In a typical double-blind placebo study, a placebo is used to test how well the intervention performs compared to a pretend treatment. Researching medications is easy to do in this way – the placebo group just receives a sugar pill that looks exactly like the medication. It is much more difficult to create pretend acupuncture. The same could be said about massage. How do you get a pretend massage?

Sham acupuncture is conducted in different ways, depending on the study. Some people receive acupuncture, but the points selected don’t correspond to the thing they’re being treated for. Or they may put pins in places that aren’t actually acupuncture points. A fake acupuncture needle has been created, which doesn’t break the skin, but instead just rests on the skin. And I’ve even seen a study where toothpicks were used.

If you read about a study where acupuncture didn’t perform any better than sham treatment, dig deeper. If the study also included a control group which didn’t receive any treatment, you will probably find that both the acupuncture and the sham groups performed better than the control. This just shows that even acupressure, and poorly performed acupuncture, still work almost as well as skilled acupuncture.

Back to this review, they found that acupuncture was associated with a moderate reduction in the frequency of headaches over no treatment. In the 12 trials that used a sham treatment, they found a small but statistically significant reduction in the frequency of headaches. Also, they found that acupuncture reduced migraine frequency significantly more than drug prophylaxis right after treatment, but that the effects didn’t last as long after treatment. However, they did note that less participants dropped out of the study in the acupuncture group because they didn’t experience side effects like the medication group did.

Acupuncture Performs Better Than a Placebo and as Well as Medication

This is the newest article I found, from April of 2019, and summarizes much of the research that has been done in the past using acupuncture to prevent episodes of migraines. Many of the studies they looked at compared acupuncture with conventional medication.

Analyzing 8 randomized controlled trials and the Cochrane review above, they compared acupuncture with the medications flunarizine, metoprolol and valproic acid. These studies also included a control group which received a placebo pill or no treatment. They found that in each study, both the medications and acupuncture worked better than the placebo, and “ For the treatment of episodic migraine prophylaxis, moderate evidence suggests that acupuncture is “at least non-inferior” to now-proven, conventional treatments to reduce headache frequency, at a 3-month follow-up, versus placebo”.

Meta-Analysis of Acupuncture Trials

A 2018 paper analyzing 62 randomized controlled studies measured not only frequency of headaches, but also overall quality of life. These studies were pulled from populations all over the world, from China, Germany, Brazil, Australia and other countries. They used a standardized test called the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) to rate their headache intensity and quality of life, as well as charting migraine frequency.

Their conclusion was: “Acupuncture exhibits certain efficacy both in the treatment and prevention of migraines, which is superior to no treatment, sham acupuncture and medication. Further, acupuncture enhanced the quality of life more than did medication.”

If after all of this you’re still curious about Jill, read on. 2 months after her initial treatment, the frequency of her headaches has gone down significantly. In fact, during the 7 treatments she received, only one time did she come in and report she had gotten a migraine that week.

To be fair, migraines are a complex, chronic issue for many people, and acupuncture isn’t effective for everyone. However, I’ve had a number of other patients who have responded very well to acupuncture for their migraines and headaches, and others who use acupuncture to cut down on their amount of medication, which helps with the side effects. If you’d like to give acupuncture a try for your headaches, and you live in the Greenville area, I’d love to help. You can make an appointment directly on our website.

Author:
Elizabeth Williams, LAc is an acupuncturist and herbalist in Greenville, South Carolina, specializing in pain management, women’s health, and psycho-emotional issues. She’s passionate about helping people feel their best and sharing her wealth of knowledge with the community. Elizabeth is the owner of Dragonfly Acupuncture & Massage on Wade Hampton Boulevard. Appointments can be made by calling 864-451-4313 or scheduled online.