A controlled clinical investigation was undertaken to compare the effects of traditional Chinese acupuncture with placebo acupuncture. The material was considered of 18 patients with chronic tension headache (average duration of disease 15 years). All of these patients had daily headache the intensity of which was registered by the patients themselves every day for 15 weeks. Each of the patients was treated with traditional Chinese acupuncture and placebo acupuncture in a randomised crossover clinical trial. Each therapeutic period comprised six treatments. Traditional Chinese acupuncture was found to offer significantly greater relief of pain than placebo treatment as assessed by the patients' own registration of pain (Wilcoxon's test, 0.05 > p > 0.025, unilaterally). Reduction of pain amounted to 31%. It is, therefore, considered reasonable to employ acupuncture in the treatment of chronic myogenic headache.

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