Acupuncture 'better than drugs' for period pain.

Pulse, the UK’s leading medical weekly publication, has published news of a systematic review of studies using acupuncture to relieve period pain (primary dysmenorrhoea).

Pulse
Acupuncture ‘is better than drugs’ for period pain
19 Feb 10
By Lilian Anekwe

A systematic review of acupuncture for the treatment of primary dysmenorrhoea has concluded that there is ‘promising evidence’ for its use.

South Korean researchers evaluated 27 randomised controlled trials of 3,000 women who were treated with a variety of different forms of acupuncture. It concludes that - compared with pharmacological treatment or herbal medicine - acupuncture was associated with a significant reduction in pain.

Overall 12 trials concluded that acupuncture was more effective than pharmacological treatment, and three trials that used pain severity scales showed that traditional acupuncture was significantly better than pharmacological treatment.

One comparison between acupuncture and herbal medicine found a significant mean difference of 2.21 points on a symptom severity scale. But comparisons of acupuncture with sham acupuncture were less clear. While some trials reported an improvement in pain relief in women given acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture, one reported no significant difference in menstrual pain score.

Read the full article on the Pulse website.

Acupuncture is a 'valuable treatment' for people who suffer from headaches and migraines.

Acupuncture for headache - a review, published by The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, 1/3/09.

Dr Adrian White is a Clinical Research Fellow at Peninsula Medical School. In this article, he summarises the findings of recent research on acupuncture for different types of headaches and migraines.

Headaches are common - in fact, the most common symptom experienced by the human race. There are various causes of headache, and of course careful conventional diagnosis is necessary in case the headache arises from some dangerous disorder - in which case acupuncture is not appropriate.

Most headaches fall into two general categories - tension type headache and migraine. These problems can persist for years. The two types of headache are clearly different, and most research investigates one or other type. In individual patients, however, it may be difficult to decide which type they have, and indeed some people may have both types together.

Acupuncture is widely used as a prevention for both types of headache, and generally involves a course of treatment sometimes with continuing top up appointments.

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