The international team of authors of a Cochrane systematic review have concluded that a course of at least six acupuncture treatments can be a valuable option for people with frequent tension headaches. They surveyed 12 trials which included 2349 patients. They drew attention to two large trials which found that acupuncture in addition to medication, resulted in 48% of patients’ headache frequency dropping by more than half; in contrast, just 17% of patients who took medication alone, experienced such an improvement.
When a comparison was made with sham acupuncture, headache frequency halved in 52% of patients receiving true acupuncture, compared with only 43% of patients receiving sham acupuncture. One high quality trial with about 400 participants, showed the benefits of true acupuncture were still present 6 months after treatment.
(Acupuncture for the prevention of tension-type headache. Cochrane Database Systematic Review, 19 April 2016.)