Hey, Dr. Perez here, let us talk about migraines. There’s some interesting features of the western pathophysiology of it that I feel makes eastern medicine well suited for these patients.
What is a Migraine Headache?
When we talk about “migraine headaches”, one of the main features at play is cortical spreading depression. That is a certain spot in your brain somewhere starts a wave of excitation, followed by a wave of inhibition. That explains the aura, the neurological symptoms, and then the pain after.
There are other features of the pathophysiology that they’ve worked out so far that kind of in this vein. They’ve found there are both genetic and environmental factors. There are waves of vasoconstriction and vasodilation. And there are sites both intracranial and extracranial that interact together to form the symptoms.
Traditional Chinese Medicine and Headaches
These sort of things in Chinese medicine are thought of as disharmony between excess and deficient organs. Excess organs are working too much. Deficient organs are not working enough. That amounts to gumming up of the works in the middle.
Acupuncture for Migraine Headaches
Acupuncture is pretty good at undoing these knots – smoothing out the wrinkles, making the “ups” go up and the “downs” go down. It’s quite effective. You can, if you figure out what this symptom pattern is, just start dragging things back in the direction they go. By doing this, you can alleviate the pain quite quickly.
I’ve even have patients still in the aura phase, the headache hasn’t happened yet, and then I harmonize them with the needles, and then the aura stops, and then the headache never comes. You stop the migraine dead in its tracks before it even happens.
If you’re interested in finding out how eastern medicine can harmonize your imbalances, contact us today.
Article Sources:
Efficacy of Acupuncture-Related Therapy for Migraine: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis, Journal of Pain Research, Volume 17, 2024
Battlefield Acupuncture for the Treatment of Chronic Migraines, Cureus: Journal of Medical Science, May 15, 2024
Acupuncture and Migraine: Finding a Combination That Stick, July 25, 2017
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