Introduction:

Headache is one of the most common nervous system disorders worldwide. It is frequently a sign of other diseases. While Western medicine treats symptoms with medications, alternative practitioners treat the cause with acupuncture to provide long-lasting relief.

Objective:

To evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture with a facial microsystem as a treatment for patients with migraine headache.

Methods:

Quasiexperimental case-control study with 100 patients who attended the Pain Clinic at Dr. Ambrosio Grillo Portuondo Hospital in Santiago de Cuba, with a diagnosis of migraine headache, from January 2014 to November 2015. The study group was applied acupuncture with a facial microsystem. The control group was treated with medicines. The information was obtained from the medical records. The pain was assessed using the Visual Analogue Scale. Chi-square test of homogeneity was applied in order to identify significant differences between the proportions of effectiveness of one treatment and another, with a level of significance α=0.05.

Results:

There was predominance of the female sex (70.00%), age group 18-39 years, among them 40 in the study group (80.00%) and 43 in the control group (86.00%). In the study group, 82.00% of patients remained without pain from the first session of treatment and 18.00% with pain decreased. At the end of the treatment, 98.00% of the study group remained without pain in opposition to 96.00% of the control group.

Conclusion:

Acupuncture with a facial microsystem is an effective alternative method in the treatment of migraine headache.

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