Evidence reports recently released by the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (FCER) show the effectiveness of chiropractic care for sufferers of Tension Headaches.  The story released February of 2001, was the continuation of a release of a study done at Duke University several years earlier.  In the study many different types of physical and  behavioral treatments were used for patients with headaches.  Chiropractic care was specifically compared to amitriptyline, a common medication used for headaches. 

In this study the staff at the Duke Center screened articles from the literature, created evidence tables, and analyzed the quality and magnitude of results from these studies. They then drafted an evidence report with peer review from a panel of 25 reviewers, including researchers and clinicians in chiropractic.

The results showed that chiropractic was highly effective for patients with tension headaches. When compared with the drug amitriptyline, chiropractic and the drug had similar short term effects during the episode.  However, the drug carried with it an adverse reaction rate in 82% of the patients.  

The most profound effects were seen after the care was discontinued in the study.  In these instances the patients who were on drug therapy essentially returned to the same state as before.  However, the patients who were under chiropractic care continued to show sustained reduction in headache frequency and severity even after the chiropractic care was discontinued.  The implications are that chiropractic is not actually a therapy or treatment, but rather gets to the cause allowing the body to effect a correction that lasts beyond actual care.

Clinical Trial Shows Chiropractic Helps Migraines

A clinical trial reported in Medical-News.net  on May 22, 2005 showed that 72% of migraine sufferers experienced either 'substantial' or 'noticeable' improvement after a period of chiropractic care.  The study was a randomized clinical trial completed over a 20 year period.  Dr. Peter Tuchin, was the chief researcher and presented his results in a thesis at Macquarie University in Australia.

The study involved 123 migraine sufferers, which was reduced down from aproximatly1000 who applied to be part of the study after responding to a television program about the research. The 123 participants were further divided into two groups.  One group received chiropractic care while the other group was a control group who did not receive any actual care but were told they were receiving a form of electrical physical therapy.

In commenting on the results, Dr. Peter Tuchin, a chiropractor for the past 20 years stated, "Around 22 per cent [of patients] had substantial reduction - which means that more than 60 percent of their symptoms reduced during the course of the treatment. What makes this a really strong result is that this was a really chronic group - the average length of time they'd had migraines was 18 years. To get a change of that sort of magnitude in a really chronic group was quite amazing."

In this study Dr. Tuchin went to great lengths to document the results.  He explained, "Both groups kept a record of their migraines for the whole six months, noting down how often they got them, how severe they were, how long they lasted, and if there was anything they could think of that contributed to them," Tuchin explains. "For two months prior to any treatment they just diarised their migraines, followed by two months of treatment and then two months of post-treatment"  

Dr. Tuchin summed up the results of the study by saying, "Chiropractic is not the be all and end all, but for a good percentage of migraine sufferers the neck is a significant contributing factor, and for them chiropractic treatment is really effective. I'm not saying that everybody's going to be cured, but there's very little to lose."