Office workers who suffer from chronic neck pain with related headaches felt the benefits for 3 years following a course of acupuncture treatment,  a study published in the journal of pain¹ has found.

Norwegian researchers from the University of Oslo recruited 24 women for the study. All women suffered from chronic neck and shoulder pain with related headaches for several years.

Half of the women were treated with acupuncture, and half received fake acupuncture to rule out the placebo effect.

12 women received ten sessions of acupuncture in a three to four week period. Following the treatment, this group had fewer headaches and greatly reduced neck and shoulder pain. Most impressively, the improvements were still noticeable three years on.

Another study, conducted by a star acupuncture researcher Hugh MacPherson, PhD of the University of York in the U.K. In 2015 it was published in Annals of Internal Medicine and widely covered in media (Time, Webmd, Reuters). This was a much larger study. It involved 517 people suffering from neck pain for an average of six years. The patients had 10 acupuncture sessions. The patients reported, that following acupuncture, 12 months after the treatment pain was reduced by more than 30%. Acupuncture was also more effective compared with drugs and traditional physical therapy, which have not been shown to have long term effect.

* (1): The study was published in Pain. Vol. 109(3)(pp 299-307), 2004.