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According to a new study, acupuncture can reduce headaches in people suffering from a chronic and painful form of the condition. Researchers found that the traditional Chinese treatment of inserting needles into the skin reduces tension headaches by half in many patients.
Tension headaches are usually accompanied by a feeling of pressure or oppression on both sides of the head of mild to moderate intensity. Fortunately, the study authors note that these headaches do not worsen with physical activity and do not cause nausea. Doctors consider tension headaches chronic when they occur at least 15 days per month.
“Tension headaches are one of the most common types of headaches, and people who experience a lot of these headaches may be looking for alternatives to medications,” says study author Dr. Ying Li of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in an article. press release.
“Our research found that acupuncture reduces the average number of headache days per month for those struggling with these painful and disruptive headache attacks.”
Researchers gathered more than 200 people diagnosed with chronic tension headaches. The patients had these headaches for an average of 11 years and had these headaches an average of 22 days per month.
Each patient participated in either true acupuncture or superficial acupuncture during the study. Real acupuncture treatments focus on achieving a ‘deqi’ sensation, which involves placing and moving a needle into the body to achieve a tingling, numb or heavy feeling.
In superficial treatments, the needles are inserted at a shallower depth to prevent the deqi feeling from being achieved. Both groups received two or three sessions per week, for a total of twenty sessions, for two months. Researchers followed each person’s progress for another six months.
True acupuncture can eliminate headaches for two weeks
The researchers considered success anyone who sees a reduction in the number of days with headaches by at least 50 percent. All participants had clinical visits every four weeks. They also used headache diaries to record their symptoms daily use of medications.
At the end of the study, 68 percent of participants who used real acupuncture reported at least a 50 percent reduction in their monthly headache days. Only 50 percent of people who received superficial acupuncture treatments achieved the same level of success.
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Researchers also found that the number of monthly headache days gradually decreased after treatment among participants in both acupuncture groups. For those who received real acupuncture, headache days dropped from an average of 20 days per month to just seven days towards the end of the study.
Among those who participated in superficial acupuncture, headache days decreased from 23 days per month at the start of the study to 12 days per month. The side effects of the treatments were mild and required no further treatment, according to the findings published online by the journal Neurology.
“Although this study showed that acupuncture can reduce headaches, more research is needed to determine the longer-term effectiveness of acupuncture and how it compares to other treatment options,” Li concludes. “When comparing treatment options, cost-effectiveness is another important factor to evaluate.”
South West News Service writer Stephen Beech contributed to this report.
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