If you've never suffered a tension-type headache (TTH), consider yourself fortunate: 75 percent of the general population does, per the American Migraine Foundation. While most last from 30 minutes to a week, TTHs can become chronic, meaning 15-plus episodes per month for three or more months.
A new randomized, controlled trial by Hui Zheng, et al., investigated the value of standardized acupuncture (20 sessions over an eight-week period) in patients with chronic TTH. Each session lasted 30 minutes, with de qi sensation achieved after "depths [were] adjusted to the standard permissible layers." A control group received superficial sham needling (depth of 1-3 mm, without de qi sensation). Between-group results were compared: specifically, response rate at weeks 16 and 32.
Whether in the experimental or control group, all patients were needled at the same points: GB 20 (Fengchi), EX-HN 5 (Taiyang), DU 20 (Baihui), LI 4 (Hegu), and LR 3 (Taichong) bilaterally.
The primary outcome measure: a 50 percent or greater reduction in monthly number of headache days. Patients whose tension-type headaches were reduced by at least 50 percent were classified as "responders."
The acupuncture group had significantly more responders at both week 16 and week 32 compared to the control group: 68.2 percent responders vs. 48.1 percent at week 16; and 68.2 percent vs. 50.0 percent at week 32.
The number of monthly headache days reduced was also significant: 4.3 fewer days at week 16 (13.1 fewer days in the acupuncture group vs. 8.8 fewer days in the control group); and 4.5 fewer days at week 32 (14.0 fewer days in the acupuncture group vs. 9.5 fewer days in the control group.)
Findings appear in Neurology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Neurology (June 22, 2022; online publication first).
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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