Acupuncture has been subjected to a very large number of clinical trials for a variety of conditions, including migraine headaches. Dr. Zhang, a neurologist at Stanford and two of his colleagues have published a review of trials that compared acupuncture with standard pharmacological migraine therapy. The review included only scientifically rigorous trials that compared the efficacy of acupuncture with a standard migraine preventive medication in adult patients with a diagnosis of chronic or episodic migraine with or without aura.
Out of the 706 published reports, 7 clinical trials, with a total of 1430 participants were of high quality. Modes of acupuncture and pharmacological treatments varied from trial to trial, which made it difficult to make any sweeping conclusions. However, several of the studies showed acupuncture to be more effective than the standard pharmacological treatments for migraine prevention.
Even if acupuncture is only as effective as drugs, its safety makes it a superior choice. The major drawbacks of acupuncture are that it is time-consuming and relatively expensive when compared to generic prescription drugs. These are the reasons why I rarely perform acupuncture on my patients. If someone is interested in acupuncture, I do encourage them to try it and refer them to well-trained lower-cost non-physician providers.
