I agree that the results reported here have been very uninspiring - I can remember 1 person who claimed results (sorta) after a long, expensive relationship with an accupuncturist. Dozens of others found no relief.
A slightly different approach is myofascial therapy - which in one study was found to be reasonably effective for cluster headaches. Myofascial (aka trigger point therapy) has some similarities to accupuncture, though the theories are quite different. Myofascial work is focused on knots or lesions (trigger points) in muscles, which can refer pain to other structures. It is plausible that such knots in the face, jaws, neck and shoulder would refer pain to the trigeminal nerve, making it less stable.
These points can be measured with devices like an EMG (electromyogram), they can be observed on biopsy/autopsy and often by a trained therapist, they are extremely tender when pressed, and they tend to replicate symptoms when pressed.
Another good thing about myofascial therapy is that after a few sessions with a massage therapist (or even with a how-to book), it is possible for a person to find and deactivate many trigger points on their own.
Quote:Head Face Med. 2008 Dec 30;4:32.
Myofascial trigger points in cluster headache patients: a case series.
Active myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) have been found to contribute to chronic tension-type headache and migraine. The purpose of this case series was to examine if active trigger points (TrPs) provoking cluster-type referred pain could be found in cluster headache patients and, if so, to evaluate the effectiveness of active TrPs anaesthetic injections both in the acute and preventive headache's treatment. Twelve patients, 4 experiencing episodic and 8 chronic cluster headache, were studied. TrPs were found in all of them. Abortive infiltrations could be done in 2 episodic and 4 chronic patients, and preemptive infiltrations could be done in 2 episodic and 5 chronic patients, both kind of interventions being successful in 5 (83.3%) and in 6 (85.7%) of the cases respectively. When combined with prophylactic drug therapy, injections were associated with significant improvement in 7 of the 8 chronic cluster patients. Our data suggest that peripheral sensitization may play a role in cluster headache pathophysiology and that first neuron afferent blockade can be useful in cluster headache management.
In this study, they used injections to deactivate the trigger points. There aren't many physicians in the US that are trained to do that, but massage therapists have non-invasive methods to deactivate.
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