It is estimated that one in six Americans suffers from chronic headaches. This adds up to more than 45 million people. Four out of every nine are women. The most common means for treatment is medication. It is not always successful and comes with side effects even when it does not help. Many people are eager for some new method of migraine relief.
More than a decade ago, the National Institutes of Health recommended acupuncture for headaches as a viable treatment modality. More recently, Duke University performed a meta-study to aggregate data from multiple separate studies investigating migraine relief and related issues. This meta-study concluded that acupuncture for headaches is more effective than medication in reducing the severity and frequency of headaches for chronic sufferers.
They conducted a
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In addition to more well known uses, such as post-operative pain relief, it can also provide migraine relief. It also has fewer side effects and can be more budget-friendly.
Acupuncture therapy for chronic headaches typically involves 30-minute sessions. Patients can begin getting relief after just five or six treatments.
One of the barriers to wider adoption of acupuncture as a treatment method is lack of patient understanding. Many patients assume that because needles are used, acupuncture is painful. They also often imagine needles similar to the common American sewing needle. Nothing could be further from the truth. Acupuncture needles are incredibly small and they cause no pain. They simply help release the body's own natural ability to fight pain.
Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years in the East, but it is viewed as an "alternative" medicine by many Westerners. It is actually far more well established than most Western treatment modalities. They typically have not been around anywhere near as