Does Acupuncture Help to Relieve Headaches?

One in six Americans suffer from chronic headaches.  Headaches may result from a number of different causes, including tension, stress, allergies, poor diet or lifestyles choices.

So, what are over 45 million Americans doing to treat their chronic headaches?  Medication is certainly the norm, but many Americans are now employing acupuncture as an alternative.  Princeton Monroe Acupuncture treats many patients for headaches, helping to reduce the intensity and frequency of this ailment.

Acupuncture is even clinically proven to be more successful at providing headache relief than medication.  62% of people in medical studies reported headache relief after undergoing acupuncture, while only 45% reported the same from medication.  Those that received acupuncture also reported a general sense of better well being.

Another study shows that acupuncture patients use 15% less medication, make 25% fewer medical visits and take 15% fewer sick days.  There are also no known side effects to acupuncture while medication can often result in ‘rebound’ headaches.

How does acupuncture help to relieve headaches?  As previously mentioned, headaches are more often than not a result of another condition.  When treating headaches with acupuncture, needles are placed both on the head to relieve immediate pain and on other points to address the underlying cause.  As discussed in my other blog posts, acupuncture can be used to directly treat any number of conditions that could lead to headaches such as lack of sleep, stress, tension and allergies.