Effects of Dry Needling on Clinical Parameters of Migraine Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial Protocol

Background and Objectives: Migraine headache is one of the most common health complaints among adults. Myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) in the cranial or cervical region may stimulate migraine symptoms and aggravate migraine pain. Physiotherapy interventions, such as trigger point dry needling (DN), can deactivate these points and may have positive effects on alleviating migraine symptoms. Therefore, this trial aims to investigate the impact of upper trapezius (UT) muscle DN in addition to medication drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) on headache characteristics in patients with migraine headaches. Methods: A parallel randomized controlled trial with single-blinded outcome assessors was conducted. Forty patients were randomly assigned to two groups. The participants in the control group received pharmacotherapy, and those in the intervention group received three sessions of trigger point DN of the UT muscle with an inter-session interval of one week as an additional treatment to pharmacotherapy. Results: The primary outcome measure was headache intensity measured by a daily headache diary form, and the secondary outcome measures were the headache duration, drug consumption, frequency of headache recorded by the daily headache diary form, pain pressure threshold, and pain intensity of the MTrPs in the UT muscle measured by an algometer and visual analog scale (VAS), respectively. Conclusion: Introducing a dry needling protocol has implications in designing clinical trials to manage migraine headache symptoms.