Abstract:

Acupuncture is being used more and more for the therapy of tension-type headaches. A final evaluation of the acupuncture treatment in founding clinical and experimental studies is still missing. The goal of this prospectiv cross-over study is to gain never before found scientifically validated data about the possible therapeutical use of acupuncture treatments of tension-type headache as well as ist quality/value in comparison with established medicinal therapy with tricyclical thymoleptika. The treatment time for each patient was 6 months. The study group consisted of 60 patients with chronic tension-type headache. The patients stopped taking medications against tension-type headache four weeks before the begin of the study. 34 patients were first treated with 16 acupunctures in eight weeks - two acupunctures each week - then were treated with 8 weeks of Equilibrin. 26 patients were first treated with 8 weeks of Equilibrin, then 8 weeks with 16 acupunctures. After the Equilibrin or acupuncture treatments each patient had four weeks of no treatment for thearapy adjustment. The evaluation of the therapy was done with headache diaries and questionnaires. From the data analysis we can say that neither the Equilibrin-Monotherapy for 2 months nor the also 2 months lasting acupuncture treatment showed significant headache improvements. The variance analysis showed a highly significant cross-reaction - time and treatment - (P<0.001) between both groups in daily average value of headache influence, product of headache intensity and lengths every day, number of headache days every months, average value of daily mood in the month, and average daily mood. The cross-reaction shows that a treatment of first 2 months Equilibrin followed by 2 months treatment of acupuncture had a better reduction of tension-type headache that the combination of first acupuncture and then Equilibrin. The raw data showed that patients with acupuncture treatment on average had lower Painload values.