Acupuncture effective on many points

Find an acupuncturist

Acupuncture effective for back pain and migraine

  1. Home
  2. Pain
  3. Acupuncture effective for back pain and migraine
Nederlands Kenniscentrum Acupunctuur

Research shows that acupuncture can be an effective form of treatment for patients with low back pain or migraine. This is reflected in a growing number of (Western) medical guidelines recommending acupuncture as an effective treatment for chronic low back pain and migraine.

Research
Acupuncture for pain relief is effective in 76 percent of cases [1]. Recent large meta-analyses support these findings and show that a series of acupuncture sessions is a meaningful treatment option for patients with chronic (low back) pain [2]. On average, it becomes clear within two to four sessions whether the treatment is effective. The effects of the treatments last long, as reported by The Journal of Pain, which states that after a year, the effect achieved from acupuncture treatments has only decreased by 15 percent [3].
The independent research institute Cochrane states in a review that the available studies suggest that acupuncture in the treatment of episodic migraines is at least as effective as prophylactic medications, offering a potential treatment option for migraine patients [4]. A recent meta-analysis in the Journal of Pain Research (2025) directly compared acupuncture with pharmacological prophylaxis (including flunarizine, metoprolol, topiramate) in chronic migraines and showed that acupuncture yields better results than pharmacological prophylaxis, with fewer side effects. A caveat to this meta-analysis is that the quality of evidence was moderate to low due to heterogeneity and methodological limitations, yet the results are clinically relevant [6].

Side Effects 
Acupuncture, unlike some other treatment methods, has hardly any side effects. If they do occur, they are usually limited to bruising and/or short-term fatigue.
Research shows that after nearly 4.5 million treatments, 11 serious complaints have been reported [7]. A summary of various studies on the safety of acupuncture can be found on the Evidence Based Acupuncture website. This shows that acupuncture is a safe treatment method, provided it is performed by a well-trained acupuncturist [7].

Medical Guidelines
In the Netherlands, acupuncture for pain relief in low back pain is only mentioned in the Pain Guideline of the Association of Elderly Care Physicians and Social Geriatricians (Verenso) [8]. In contrast, in English-language medical treatment guidelines, acupuncture has been mentioned positively nearly 1500 times in recent years, for both acute and chronic pain [10].

For chronic low back pain
The American College of Physicians (ACP), for example, recommends 'initially opting for a non-pharmacological treatment involving exercise, multidisciplinary rehabilitation, acupuncture, and mindfulness-based stress reduction'[10].
The North American Spine Society (NASS) suggests adding acupuncture to usual care for short-term pain and function improvement [11]. The Scottish National Clinical Guideline for the Management of Chronic Pain aligns with this recommendation [12], and the renowned British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has included acupuncture in its Chronic Pain guideline [13].

For the treatment of tension headaches and migraines with aura where topiramate and propranolol are not effective, NICE recommends up to ten acupuncture sessions over 5 to 8 weeks [14]. Cochrane states in its systematic review that acupuncture can be considered as a treatment option for patients willing to undergo this treatment [5].

KNMG Guideline
The Physicians' Federation KNMG is open to non-conventional treatments, provided they meet four conditions [15]. Given the available scientific research and clinical experiences on the effectiveness of acupuncture for chronic low back pain or migraine, without neglecting conventional indicated treatments, a patient, in accordance with their wishes and supplemented with good information, can be directed to acupuncture as a possible and safe treatment option.

References:

  • 1. Weidenhammer, W., et al, Acupuncture for chronic pain within the research program of 10 German Health Insurance Funds--basic results from an observational study, Journal of Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2007 Dec;15(4):238-46.
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [←]

  • 2. Vickers A.J. et al, Acupuncture for Chronic Pain, Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis, Archives of Internal Medicine, 2012, Oct 22; Vol172,No.19:1444-53
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [←]                               

  • 3. Vickers A.J. et al, Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Update of an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis. The Journal of Pain, 2018, May,Vol 19,No.5, 455-474; Epub 2017 Dec
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...    [←]

  • 5. Liu, A.R. et al, Efficacy of Acupuncture and Pharmacotherapy for Migraine Prophylaxis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Journal of Pain Research, 2025 (May), Vol. 2025:18, pp. 2521—2540, https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S5...
  • 6. White, A., The safety of acupuncture – evidence from the UK. Acupuncture in Medicine, 2006, 24(Suppl), 53–57. https://journals.sagepub.com/d...[←]

  • 8. Verenso. Multidisciplinary Guideline Pain, Recognition and treatment of pain in vulnerable elderly. Part 1 - summary, Part 2 - integral text, Part 3 - appendix, Utrecht: Verenso 2011 https://www.verenso.nl/_asset/...[←]

  • 9. Birch, S., et al, Overview of Treatment Guidelines and Clinical Practical Guidelines That Recommend the Use of Acupuncture: a Bibliometric Analysis, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Vol 24, No 8, 2018 (Aug), pp. 1-18
    https://www.liebertpub.com/doi...    [←]

  • 10. American College of Physicians (ACP), Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline, ACP Journals/Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017 (April) https://www.acpjournals.org/do...[←]

  • 11. North American Spine Society (NASS), Diagnosis and Treatment of Low Back Pain, Evidence-Based Clinical Guidelines for Multidisciplinary Spine Care, NASS, 2020
    https://www.spine.org/Portals/...    [←]

  • 14. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Headaches in over 12s: diagnosis and management, NICE Clinical guideline [CG150], 2012 (Sept), Updated 2021 (May) https://www.nice.org.uk/guidan...[←]