NEWS RELEASE

  Acupuncture Effective for Treatment of Headaches

San Francisco, CA  – During National Headache Awareness Week, June 1 – 7, 2008, the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine is committed to educating the public about the impact and treatment of headaches.  The goals of National Headache week are to gain recognition of headache pain as a real and legitimate condition, to encourage sufferers to seek help, and to let sufferers know that there are many treatment options available, including acupuncture and herbal medicine.  

More than 45 million Americans suffer from headaches and migraines.  Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine have been used to relieve headaches and migraines, as well as treat their underlying causes for thousands of years. Acupuncture and herbal medicine can offer powerful relief without the side effects that prescription and over-the-counter drugs can cause, such as dizziness, nausea, or irregular heart rate.  Traditional Chinese Medicine differs from conventional Western medicine in diagnosis and treatment of headaches by recognizing specific symptoms that are unique to each individual’s constitution and using a variety of techniques such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, bodywork/massage, and energetic exercises to restore imbalances found in the body.  During the acupuncture treatment, very fine needles may be placed along a person’s forehead, temples, shoulders, arms, legs, hands or feet.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal in July 2005, a randomized controlled study in Germany found acupuncture to cut tension headache rates almost in half.  Researchers divided 270 patients who reported similarly severe tension headaches into three groups for the study. Over the project’s eight- week period, one group received traditional acupuncture, one received only minimal acupuncture (needles inserted at non-acupuncture points and at only shallow levels), and the third group received neither treatment.  The group receiving the traditional acupuncture reported reducing their headache rates down to nearly 50% and suffered 7 fewer days of headache, in comparison to those who received no treatments.  The minimal acupuncture group suffered 6.6 fewer days, and the non-acupuncture group suffered 1.5 fewer days. When all groups received acupuncture after the end of the main study period, the “no treatment” group also reported significantly fewer headache days. The improvements continued for months after the conclusion of treatments, rising slightly as time went on.

In addition to tension headaches, acupuncture is effective for migraine headaches, cluster headaches, post-traumatic headaches and disease-related headaches due to sinus problems, high blood pressure or sleeping disorders. Acupuncture can reduce the number of headache days that a person has per year, as well as reduce the amount of medication they need and days off work.   Unlike synthetic drugs, which can lead to patients experiencing a "rebound" headache, acupuncture is safe, gentle and has virtually no side effects.

American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) has provided affordable, quality health care to the public and trained professionals in acupuncture, massage and Chinese medicine since 1980. In addition to its graduate curriculum, ACTCM offers continuing education, public education, community outreach and clinical services in acupuncture and herbal medicine. ACTCM has been the recipient of many awards for its curriculum, faculty and clinic, and has been voted “Best of the Bay” by both the San Francisco Weekly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. ACTCM is accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and is a private, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

For more information on how acupuncture can help people suffering from headaches, please call (415) 355-1601 x12.