Acupuncture for Headaches & Migraines

How Chinese medicine understands headaches and migraines

In Chinese medicine, where your head hurts is one of the first clues, because each area sits on a different channel:

• Forehead: the Stomach channel (Yangming).
• Temples and sides of the head: the Gallbladder channel (Shaoyang). Many one-sided migraines sit here.
• Back of the head and neck: the Bladder channel (Taiyang). Tension headaches often start here.
• Top of the head: the Liver channel (Jueyin).

The kind of pain points to the pattern behind it. The common patterns are:

• Liver Yang rising. Throbbing, pounding pain, often at the temples or behind one eye, brought on by stress, anger or poor sleep. Many migraines are read this way.
• Liver Qi stagnation. A tight, pressing headache with stiff neck and shoulders that builds with stress and long days.
• Blood deficiency. A dull, lingering ache that is worse when you are tired or after a period, and better lying down.
• Phlegm and Damp. A heavy, foggy head, sometimes with nausea, often worse after rich or greasy food.
• External Wind. A headache that comes with a cold, with neck stiffness and chills.

Headaches that follow the menstrual cycle are often read as a Liver or Blood pattern. Two people with “migraines” can have quite different patterns, and the points and any herbs change to match.

What treatment involves

Your first visit at the clinic in Keswick starts with questions: where the pain sits, how often it comes and how long it lasts, what seems to trigger it (sleep, food, stress, your cycle, weather), and what medication you take and how often. I look at your tongue and take your pulse. A headache diary kept between visits helps show whether the pattern is changing.

Acupuncture is usually the main treatment. Points are commonly chosen on the head and neck and on the hands and feet, to suit your pattern. I treat the whole body at every treatment, not only the head. The needles are very fine, 0.14 to 0.30 mm. For migraine, treatment is mainly about prevention: aiming for fewer and milder headaches over time, rather than stopping one in progress.

When tight neck and shoulder muscles are part of the picture, cupping and tuina massage can help loosen them. When the pattern calls for it, Chinese herbal medicine is a formula written for your pattern.

Because headaches come and go, it takes a few weeks to see whether they are changing. Plan on 5–10 treatments to judge progress.

Between visits

• Keep a headache diary. Note the date, how bad it was, how long it lasted, what you had been doing, and any medication taken.
• Keep a steady routine. Regular sleep, regular meals and enough water help many people who get headaches.
• Watch how often you take painkillers. Using them on many days a month can make headaches more frequent. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you are taking them often.
• Take screen and posture breaks. Stand up, roll your shoulders and look away from the screen every half hour.
• Don’t stop prescribed medication without talking to your doctor.

When to see your doctor first

Call 911 or go to emergency if you have:

• A sudden, severe headache that reaches full strength within a minute, or is the worst you have ever had.
• A headache with weakness, numbness, drooping face, trouble speaking, loss of vision or loss of balance.
• A headache with fever, a stiff neck, a rash or confusion.
• A headache after a blow to the head.

See your doctor promptly if:

• Your headaches are new after age 50, or have clearly changed from your usual pattern.
• Headaches wake you from sleep, or are worse lying down, coughing or straining.
• You are pregnant and get a new or severe headache.
• You are over 50 and have tenderness at the temples or jaw pain when chewing.