 Migraines are one of the most common clinical issues that I see people come in with to the clinic and it's one of those issues that can be really debilitating and as anyone if you've had a migraine and you're watching this you know how awful they can really be and how much they can really take over your life. Now it's tricky because for conventional care migraines are difficult problems to treat for many people especially to have them kind of go away for good and so a lot of patients tend to seek out alternative care. But what is the actual efficacy in terms of Chinese medicine for migraines? So in this video I thought I would share three pieces of research just for acupuncture and even though I'm primarily an herbal a formula specialist I thought this would be interesting to share a few pieces of research on specifically acupuncture for migraines since it has been studied a lot. Hey I'm Dr. Alex Hine Chinese medicine doctor author of the book on health habits master the day. Now I've included the first link below this video is for a free guide which is four daily rituals that can help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. Now if you'd like to also become a patient of mine either locally or via telemedicine if you add your name to the email list below as well you'll also be notified of how you can reach me and find my clinic. So I wanted to share this first study that was a German study done that found that acupuncture worked about as well as a beta blocker for a preventative medicine measure. So this German randomized controlled trial with 302 people showed that what they found was that acupuncture was more effective than no ab acupuncture for migraines. Now a second study with a sample size of 794 people showed that 11 acupuncture treatments given within six weeks was at least as effective as a beta blocker taken daily over a six month period and in addition a 2009 Cochrane review found that there was consistent evidence that acupuncture was at least as effective as prophylactic drug treatment so using the drug to prevent migraines or prevent the severity of frequency and that is acupuncture was something that should be considered a serious option for patients willing to undergo it. Now a second study that was an Italian study compared acupuncture with or without a certain migraine drug and acupuncture versus no acupuncture so they had actually four groups in this particular study. Now here's what they found. So the first group was true acupuncture treated with real acupuncture with a migraine drug. The second group was treated with what's called ritualized mock acupuncture so placebo plus the migraine drug. Group three was treated with mock acupuncture or sham acupuncture with the migraine drug and the fourth group was only treated with the migraine drug. Now the results from this experiment found that actually true acupuncture was the only treatment able to provide a steady outcome improvement in comparison to the use of only the migraine drug. Now the third study was a really interesting study done in the Journal of Pain Research. Now they used technology called an MRSI. People may know MRI to look at the brain but MRSI very very generally assesses in this case certain metabolites and certain metabolic byproducts. So it's looking more at the chemistry of what's going on. Here's what they found. They found that acupuncture actually changed the levels of certain metabolites in the brain related to pain and headache intensity. So acupuncture actually produced measurable biochemical changes that were measurable in the brain so physiological changes that were clearly measurable. It's really interesting because sometimes when you measure for example subjective pain that's kind of easy to fudge and it's easy for the measures to be somewhat accurate but in terms of the highest level of scientific scrutiny not so reliable. But when you can actually look at like fMRI studies or like this last study which shows changes in the metabolites it makes it a little bit more concrete and demonstrates that there's really something real going on here. So I don't know maybe you've considered acupuncture or Chinese herbs for migraines. Maybe you haven't. Maybe this can be another tool in your toolbox to help you get relief because I know how debilitating they can be. All right that's all I've got for today. Again if you'd like to stay in touch below this video that first link is for a free download for daily rituals that can help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine as well as if you'd like to become a patient of mine adding your name to the email list below this video will give you the info to contact me or set up a telemedicine appointment. All right before you go I have two related videos that can also help you right here.