A placebo-controlled clinical trial of lavender essential oil aromatherapy shows it to be an effective migraine therapy. “Lavender…has been studied recently for several purposes including treatment of mood and anxiety disorders,” as well as a number of other things. Its “analgesic effect,” however—its painkiller effect—is one of its most “widely studied properties.”
Surprising, then, that there hasn’t been a single “documented clinical trial to study lavender for the treatment of migraine” headaches, that affect tens of millions of Americans every year—until now: “Lavender Essential Oil in the Treatment of Migraine Headache: A Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.”
Migraine sufferers “were asked to, at the early signs of a headache—rub 2-3 drops of the lavender essential oil onto their upper lip and inhale its vapor for a 15-min period” of time, and score the severity of their headache for the next two hours. In the control group, they did the same thing, except they used drops of basically unscented liquid wax. And neither group was allowed to use any painkillers. In the lavender group, 74% of patients had an improvement in their symptoms—significantly better than placebo….