Manage Migraines with Non-Pharmaceutical Laser Therapy

posted by Apollo Lasers on Thursday, April 2, 2015

Migraines affect more than 37 million men, women and children in the U.S. alone, causing loss of wages, reducing school productivity, negatively impacting personal relationships and limiting the ability to function normally. Drug therapies can help, but ongoing research is working to identify non-pharmaceutical therapies. Laser therapy could be an option: According to a recent story on Newswire, one recent study has found that cold laser therapy can make a profound difference in reducing migraines and improving quality of life.

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Next time a migraine strikes will you reach for the Aleve or the phone to call someone who offers cold laser therapy for the relief of migraine headaches. Migraine headaches cost the U.S. economy a whopping 26 billion dollars a year in lost time at work and wages. That staggering sum is correct according to a recent report in U.S. News and World Report.

What about the human toll? Since women are far more likely than men to experience migraines, do we really understand what women go through? A recent report put out by Reuter's said that in single parent households women were 72% more likely to have migraine headaches issues. This lends itself to the question of stress as a cause of these migraines. With uncertain etiology, migraines cause problems physically but also in the family life of the migraine sufferer's family and to their work place.

The most recent advance is the use of cold laser therapy and it is promising to say the least. Lasers have been around for a long time. Their recent application in treating migraines is most noteworthy. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center did a 9 month study with 49 study participants. The study started with 60 but only 49 finished. What they found was surprising. Study participants were asked to undergo a 6 minute cold laser therapy session targeting the cervical and occipital nerves twice a week for 8 weeks followed by weekly sessions for 8 weeks, then once every other week for the remainder of the study. Dr.Emil Hershberg, the lead author of the study found that 72% of the participants saw a profound difference in their quality of life as measured by weekly Roland-Morris questionaires.

Surprisingly, many study participants noted improved relationships with family members and co-workers. At the end of 9 months, a focus group was formed to discuss the results. More then 68% of study participants stopped all migraine related medication by the conclusion of the study. Across the board the participants were happy with the results. The overall improvement was subjective but overwhelmingly popular in that migraines were reduced significantly in 84% of the study participants. The participants were not paid to participate.

What does the study's result mean? It tells us that a pharmacological solution for migraine headaches may not be the direction we should be going.The problem here is that most funding comes from Big Pharma. This study was done in 2013 and received very little notice. If a drug study produced similiar results, Big-Pharma would have had a blockbuster on their hands. So this study, proving the efficacy of cheaper and safer alternative treatment for the resolution of migraine headaches, goes unnoticed.

Laser therapy is a inexpensive way to treat many different conditions. The study at U.P.M.C was specific to migraine headaches sufferers who were females between the ages of 29–59. Since the etiology of migraines are not understood, the study results were promising.