Migraines are headaches which are usually recurrent and very strong, affecting one’s daily functioning quite negatively, leading to excruciating pain and discomfort. In fact, people who suffer from migraines may even be unable to concentrate on anything but the pain during the headaches they experience. Moreover, migraines are usually mysterious conditions which are hard to diagnose and even harder to track down, as far as their causes are concerned. Therefore, finding treatment for migraines can be a very hard process.
Fortunately, recent medical research revealed that acupuncture is a method capable of successfully helping one deal with his/her migraine problem.
Migraine Headaches with Alternative Therapy
Many forms of alternative therapy have been directed towards helping people overcome their migraine problems. However, most of these failed to successfully remove this debilitating and painful problem. Yet, acupuncture holds great promise and, even though it has commonly been used for other purposes, it might become the best possible treatment for migraines.
According to the British Medical Journal, a study was carried out, dividing 401 adults between 18 and 65 years of age into two groups which underwent treatment. All individuals had problems with chronic headaches and migraines.
After being exposed to acupuncture 12 times, over the course of 3 months, these people managed not to suffer from headaches 22 days more than before. Moreover, they used 15% less medications for dealing with the symptoms of the migraines and visited their doctors 25% less frequently. This resulted in a decrease in calling in sick by 15%.
Surely, the placebo effect is not to be neglected here, since some of the improvement may have taken place without the actual effect of acupuncture. However, the researchers have conducted a parallel study where individuals were treated with the placebo and the effects were much less prominent than those which were attributed to acupuncture.
What Can Acupuncture Do for Migraine Headaches?
Due to the fact that acupuncture belongs to the area of Traditional Chinese Medicine, it observes and understands migraines as individual conditions rather than symptoms of some other health problems. Therefore, migraine of every person is diagnosed and treated individually, depending on the location of the headache, the frequency and time of common occurrence. Also, TCM will take the situations which provoke migraines in consideration too, as well as the type of pain being the most prominent during the onset of these headaches.
Either way, acupuncture is capable of helping one deal with his/her headaches through the process of jabbing small needles all over a person’s body. All body parts may be exposed to acupuncture, even the toes, arms and legs. Fortunately, these needles are very thin and usually do not trigger any pain or discomfort during insertion under the surface of the skin. Even when the pain appears at the moment of piercing, it vanishes shortly after. The typical acupuncture treatment lasts for about half an hour. Yet, even though the first treatment session is noticeably effective, multiple visits are necessary for the complete recovery to take place.
In a case study carried out in 2003, it was discovered that acupuncture is very effective in treatment of cluster headaches, once the needles are placed into the specific parts of the patient’s scalp. During the treatments, about 98% of patients experienced a reduction in the frequency of headache manifestations. Moreover, some individuals involved in the treatment even reported that their headaches were completely gone. Those who were not that lucky managed to reduce the headaches to mild, occasional ones, over the course of 6 months of acupuncture.
Due to the adrenal cortisol stimulation triggered by the acupuncture, most patients discontinued their corticosteroid therapy.
During many of the studies carried out, it was proven that the effect of acupuncture on removal of migraines and recurrent headaches was much more prominent than any sham treatment and placebo effects.
Today, in the US, about 8.2 million people undergo acupuncture. Thus, this form of treatment is bound to become even more popular over the years to come. All the studies served a purpose of backing this therapy up, showing its potential and promoting it as a new usage for a medical treatment method which is more than 2000 years old.
Acupuncture still has a long way to go, in terms of scientific trials and proofs of its effectiveness. Yet, all the people who have managed to overcome their migraine problems serve as a prominent sign of the power of this form of therapy.
To sum up, acupuncture is becoming an increasingly popular alternative medicine treatment method for many health problems, along with migraines. These frequent and recurrent headaches can be successfully dealt with through acupuncture and countless research studies have proven this.So, if migraines are troubling you, do not neglect the magnificent potential of acupuncture. Rather, put your trust in it since it might be the tool of your recovery.
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