Acupuncture for migraines
Did you know acupuncture help with headaches, including migraines?
Just a quick email today to share some research on this topic.
If you struggle with migraines, you’re not alone. It’s estimated that 1.25 billion (!) people experience migraines each year.
In a 2020 study, researchers found that acupuncture was more effective than usual care in preventing migraines. In most cases, “usual care” is taking preventative migraine medication daily or with the onset of a migraine.
“based on high quality of evidence,” acupuncture is “an effective and safe therapy for migraine.” How many treatments are needed?
As with acupuncture for most symptoms and conditions, the results are cumulative. This means multiple treatments are needed over time for the best, longest-lasting effect. I recommend one treatment per week for 6-8 weeks, and depending on how you’re feeling at that time, we might begin spacing the treatments out with the goal of maintenance treatments every 4 weeks.
It always depends on the person (how long you’ve been experiencing symptoms, and how severe the symptoms are) but I find that for chronic migraine, monthly maintenance treatments are very useful for preventing migraines.
