The Effects of Dry Needling Technique on Clinical Parameters of Patients With Migraine Headache: A Protocol for Randomized Clinical Trial

Background: Migraine headache is one of the most common health complaints among adults. Myofascial trigger points in the cranial or cervical region may stimulate migraine symptoms and aggravate migraine pain. It seems that physiotherapy interventions such as trigger point dry needling could deactivate these points and may have positive effects on alleviating migraine symptoms. Therefore, this trial is proposed to investigate the impact of upper trapezius muscle dry needling in addition to drug therapy on headache characteristics in patients with migraine headaches. Methods: A parallel randomized controlled trial with single-blinded outcome assessors will be conducted. Forty patients will be randomly assigned to two groups. The participants in the control group will receive drug therapy, and those in the intervention group will receive three sessions of trigger point dry needling of the upper trapezius muscle with an inter-session interval of one week as an additional treatment to drug therapy. Outcomes and results: The primary outcome measure will be headache intensity measured by a daily headache diary form, and the secondary outcome measures will be the duration of headache, drug consumption, frequency of headache recorded by the daily headache diary form, pain pressure threshold, and pain intensity of the Myofascial trigger points in the upper trapezius muscle measured by an algometer and visual analog scale, respectively.