Headache and Migraine

Modern pace of life and lifestyle makes people feel under more and more pressure. Headaches and migraines have become a very common disease. There are many types of headache and there are also many types of causes to headaches, such as neurotic headache, vascular headache, Arteritis headache, seizures, tumor headache, and headaches caused by eye diseases or nasal diseases, and so on.  Use of acupuncture and moxibustion for the treatment of headache is very effective.  It can be applies to different types of headaches.

 

Clinical results have shown that acupuncture has a very good effect in treating headaches, particularly for of primary headaches.　Headache is a common disease, but the treatment is difficult.  Although using drugs is the main method of treating headache, long-term medication can have side effects against the human body, reducing the efficacy of the drug. Using acupuncture to treat headache doesn  not have this problem.

 

The so-called primary headache refers to spontaneous headache not caused by other diseases. There are many meridians and channels in the head.  Diseases that occur at different meridians and channelswill cause pain in different parts of the head. Headache treatment with acupuncture and moxibustion is based on the differentiation of meridians linked to the pain to select the points for acupuncture treatment.  For instance,  the headache on both sides of the head is called Shaoyang headache and the headache on top of the head is called Jue Yin headache.　Domestic and international studies have shown that acupuncture treatment for headaches is better than drugs.

 

Acupuncture can reduce the frequency of headaches.  For example, some young female patients with primary migraines may experience more severe pain during menstrual period.   After a period of time of acupuncture treatment, headaches disappeared and seldom recur.

 

Acupuncture treatment for headaches focus on smoothing the meridians and improving blood circulation, supplemented by regulating different internal organs.  Appropriate treatment  is applied in various conditions.  For instance, the treatment is targeted to the symptoms in acute cases, and in chronic case the treatment is targeted to the sauce of the headache.   There are many types of headaches, differentiation should be based on the nature of the patient's headache, the location of the pain and the tongue appearance so that appropriate treatment  can be applied.

 

Prolonged headache is normally caused by meridian blockage resulted from visceral disease, such as the Yin deficiency in liver and kidneys, or Yang deficiency, or blood circulation deficiencies, and so on. The treatment should apply the fundamental principle of traditional Chinese medicine to target both the symptoms and the causes of the disease.  while adjusting the internal organs, one should never forget to strengthen the meridians, sooth the pain, improve blood circulation and reduce stasis.

In the clinical treatment at Oriental Medical Bethune Center, acupuncture and moxibustion treatment has achieved remarkable effects, particularly in the treatment of vascular headache, neurological headache, headaches associated with women's menstruals, and headaches caused by rhinitis or allergy.