Natural and Alternative Headache Treatment Options

As we often mention on this website, Chinese Medicine treats "patterns" not individual symptoms/conditions.  A very common set of diagnostic patterns to have, particularly in westerners, is liver qi stagnation combined with spleen qi deficiency ("LSSD" in this study).  Symptoms-wise this often arises a

Taiwanese researchers from Kuang Tien General Hospital recently conducted a study comparing acupuncture versus the western medication Topamax (topiramate, topiragen) for people with chronic migraines. 

Chinese Medicine (including acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and tuina medical massage, among other techniques) is commonly used to treat migraines and other forms of headaches in patients.  People often come in when western medicines are either undesireable or are not offering the type of resolution they would like to experience.  In clinical settings acupuncture appears to be quite helpful for the range of Chinese Medicine patterns that can result in the patient experiencing migraines.

A person with chronic neck pain started having headaches. From his description it occured to me that the gall bladder meridian runs through the neck. Often (not always) headaches relate to liver and gall bladder energy. Liver neurovasculars are found in the forehead. The liver has a lot of work to do. In addition to being charged with the job of eliminating toxins, it also clears emotions and processes hormones. Most of us these days have burdened livers.

Here are a few things one can do to see if it relieves headache pain. I recommend doing them in the order indicated.

Acupuncture is an often used and effective option for the non pharmaceutical treatment of migraines.  There are a host of options when treating patients with migraines with regards to the theory underlying your treatment point selections to the actual techniques used.  

Acupuncture is used often for the treatment of all types of headaches and migraines.  Outside of pain treatment there is very little western medicine can offer in the way of permanently resolving these issues.  The following article discusses a large German study using acupuncture in the treatment of headaches.