Trigger Point Massage in Chronic Tension Headache

Efficacy of Trigger Points Massage in Severity of Chronic Tension Headache:An Unmasked, Randomized, Controlled Trial

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT04232046

Enrollment

Registered

2020-01-18

Start date

2016-02-15

Completion date

2019-03-15

Last updated

2020-01-18

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Tension-Type Headache

Keywords

Massage, Trigger point

Brief summary

Patients with IHS criteria of chronic tension headache , considering inclusion and exclusion criteria, enrolled to this study. They will be randomized to intervention or control group by block randomization method, then treat by standard drug( nortriptyline 10 mg daily) or trigger point massage. They report severity, frequency, duration of headaches and number of analgesic drugs in diary during week 1 and week 4. Then data based on dairy will be analysis.

Interventions

OTHERMassage

Massage the trigger points in 8 different points for 1 min in circle direction and 3 times a day.

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Intervention model description

Case and control group

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

18 Years to 60 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

1. Chronic tension type headache according to IHS criteria 2. Finding painful trigger point in physical examination 3. no contraindication for massage 4. no prophylactic treatment 5. written inform consent

Exclusion criteria

1. Dementia or severe cognitive impairment 2. Under Treatment with drugs with prophylactic effect 3. History of RA or Cervicocephalic fracture or other skeletal deformity 4. Other complementary treatment

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Headache severity change	Mean Visual Analogue Scale sore change in week 4 from the baseline	By Visual Analogue Scale score,from 0 that indicate no pain to 10 that indicate severe pain

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Headache frequency change	Change in number of attacks in week 4 from the base line	Number of attacks in week
Headache duration change	Change in Time duration in week 4 from the baseline	Time duration ( in minutes)of attacks in week
Number of analgesic change	Change in Number of analgesic drugs used in week 4 from the baseline	Number of analgesic drugs used during a week

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026