My Family Doctor
A family practitioner for over 25 years, Dr. Hubbard knows the medical world inside and out. Frustrated by managed care and the lack of time doctors were able to spend educating patients, he launched James Hubbard's My Family Doctor: The Magazine That Makes Housecalls, a national magazine written by health care practitioners that is his answer to hurried doctor visits, conflicting medical studies, and complicated treatment options.
Acupuncture Treatment for Headaches
It works, says the Cochrane Collaboration
Acupuncture got an official seal of approval from a respected medical organization this year. According to the Cochrane Collaboration, it effectively treats tension-type headaches and helps keep away migraines—even better than other preventive treatments.
The Cochrane Collaboration is in independent, well-respected, nonprofit organization that analyzes evidence-based medicine (available studies) to come up with recommendations of whether interventions work. They are strict, conservative, and hard to please, and it’s not easy to get their approval. So if they think some treatment works, the evidence bears them out.
After reviewing the literature, they proclaim acupuncture is good treatment for migraines if the usual over-the-counter medicines don’t help. Also, if preventive medicines for migraines don’t work or give you adverse effects such as nausea or drowsiness, you may want to consider acupuncture.
I’m not familiar enough with acupuncture to know whether there’s a standard number of treatments, but the Cochrane people found treatment continues to be effective for up to nine months after finishing. No word on how much the treatments decrease headache frequency or severity, or what prophylactic medicines they were compared to. Cochrane just said acupuncture helps.
Even with no specifics, I will recommend it to those miserable few who have found no success with more conventional therapies. In the past, I’ve said it’s worth a try. Now I’ll be more optimistic.
For me, the tryptans (Zomig, Imitrex, Maxalt, etc.) work magic. I started having migraines in my 30s and thought they were tension headaches. Luckily, another physician (and my wife) thought they were migraines, so I tried a tryptan. I had relief within 30 minutes. As I’ve gotten older, the headaches have become less frequent.
Other people, however, are not so lucky with tryptans, or they have headaches so often that these medicines are impractical and expensive. There are medicines you can take every day to prevent the headaches, and now we have proof that acupuncture is effective also.
Good news, indeed.
Does anyone else have migraines, or have you tried acupuncture? What works for you? Please comment!
By James Hubbard, MD, MPH
My Family Doctor Blog
[Originally posted March 3, 2009, James Hubbard’s My Family Doctor Web site.]
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