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Headaches
Whenever I'm asked to speak about acupuncture I often close the talk with my tag line which goes: "So the next time you have a headache, take 2 safety pins and call me in the morning". While this usually gets a laugh I mean it seriously to let people know that acupuncture works very well for all kinds of headaches. Don't just take my word for it. Now a recently published study found acupuncture to be a useful and cost effective treatment for chronic headaches and migraines.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, compared standard treatment (i.e.: medication) to standard treatment plus acupuncture. The study looked at 401 patients from England and Wales with chronic headaches, primarily migraines. Patients in the acupuncture group received 12 treatments over 3 months. Both groups kept a diary in which they noted the frequency and severity of their symptoms and medication used during the first four weeks, at 3 months and again after 1 year.
At the conclusion the patients who had received acupuncture averaged 22 fewer days of headaches per year, used 15% less medication, made 25% less visits to their doctors and had 15% less sick days that the group using medication alone.
According to one of the authors of the study Dr. Andrew Vickers of the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York said, "For severely affected patients, acupuncture reduced the severity and the frequency of their headaches to make a real difference in their lives".
As I tell my patients: "Acupuncture is a jab well done!"
© 2005 Larry Forsberg. All rights reserved.
Articles posted on this Web site are for personal use only and remain the property of Larry Forsberg, L.Ac.
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