A 24-year-old office worker had been suffering from severe migraines for a decade—with intense attacks every other day, accompanied by photophobia, an extreme sensitivity to light. High-dose painkillers did not help. But after five acupuncture sessions with an AUSWEGE therapist, he was pain-free.
Since no medication had provided him with relief, the desperate young man decided to seek out Lorenz*: a naturopath from the
AUSWEGE network who relies primarily on Traditional Chinese Medicine. Over the course of three months, he had 11 acupuncture sessions. In addition, the patient changed his diet on the therapist’s advice.
According to Lorenz, “after just two treatments, the pain occurred only once in five days, and it was less severe.” After the fourth session, the patient was pain-free for four days; after the fifth session, for eight days. After that, the migraine had disappeared. A two-week relapse occurred after the patient drank heavily while on vacation; after a single additional treatment and strict
abstinence from alcohol, he was once again pain-free, this time permanently. In addition, he overcame his sleep disturbances, and his severe nighttime teeth grinding ceased.
More than one billion people worldwide suffer from migraines. 36.4% are considered “treatment-resistant”: At least three classes of preventive medications fail to relieve the pain; furthermore, their migraines occur on at least eight days per month for more than three months. Even worse off are the 11% who are “refractory”: For them, every
available medication fails.
A 2016 Cochrane review included 22 studies with 4,985 participants. Its findings:
Comparison At least a 50% reduction in
headache frequency
Acupuncture in addition to standard care 41%
Standard care without acupuncture 17%
Real acupuncture 50%
Sham acupuncture 41%
Acupuncture after three months 57%
Medication prophylaxis after three months 46%
Compared with no preventive treatment, there was thus a clear benefit.
Compared with sham acupuncture, the additional benefit was significantly smaller: nine additional responders per 100 patients treated. (“Responder” means a halving of the frequency of symptoms, not complete freedom from symptoms.) Compared to medication, acupuncture was at least equally effective and resulted in fewer treatment discontinuations and fewer side effects; after six months, however, the difference in responder rates compared to medication was no longer statistically significant.
Larger individual studies
A JAMA study involving 249 patients examined 20 acupuncture sessions over a period of four weeks. After 16 weeks, the number of attacks had decreased from baseline by:
3.2 attacks with real acupuncture,
2.1 attacks with sham acupuncture,
1.4 attacks in the waitlist group.
The benefit over sham acupuncture was thus an average of 1.1 attacks over the course of four months.
Another study from 2020 found the following results after 20 sessions compared to sham acupuncture:
an average of 1.4 fewer migraine days in weeks 13–16,
an average of 2.1 fewer migraine days in weeks 17–20.
Both studies thus confirmed that acupuncture is not a placebo therapy, but neither is it a highly effective treatment. Acupuncture does indeed help with migraines— though generally to a modest degree. In individual cases, however, the positive effect can still be enormous, as countless real-world examples suggest.
For more information about the AUSWEGE Foundation’s network of therapists, click here » https://ivh.stiftung-
auswege.de/
For more information about treatment successes achieved by AUSWEGE therapists, click here » https://www.stiftung-
auswege.de/diagnosen/e/epilepsie.html
(*: Pseudonym)
Support “Ways Out Charity“! With your support, we can help and move forward. > https://bit.ly/3wuNgd
