Headaches and Migraines

Headaches can be classified as Primary or Secondary. Primary headaches generally have no underlying cause and can include; migraines, tension, cluster and exertional headaches.

Secondary headaches are identified by their causes; such as neurological, vascular, an infection, substance withdrawl or metabolic imbalances etc. Alongside pain, migraines may be accompanied by photophobia, phonophobia, aura and nausea and vomiting. The World Health Organisation regards migraines as the second most debilitating neurological disorder.

Headaches - a perspective from Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine

According to Chinese Medicine theory, headaches can be caused by different pathogenic factors. Such factors include - external such as; wind cold, wind heat, dampness OR an internal imbalance such as blood stasis (sometimes from physical trauma), blood deficiency, liver yang rising, phlegm or a kidney deficiency. Removing any obstructions and resolving the pattern will help to resolve the symptoms.

What does the research say ?

A ten year national cohort study, which included a total of 2385 migraine patients illustrated that hospitalisations were statistically significantly lower in patients who received Acupuncture. Those patients who utilised Acupuncture (even alongside allopathic treatments has less frequent hospitalisations and lower emergency care expenditure (Tsai et al, 2020).

A systematic review of randomised controlled trials on Acupuncture and Migraines, illustrated interesting evidence. They found across the trials the incidence and severity of migraines reduced more after treatments had accrued after longer periods. For example, those undergoing treatment of Acupuncture for 4 months found they experienced less severe and frequent migraines compared to those patients at only one month of Acupuncture (Yang et al, 2024).

References

• Yang, Wu, Luo, Xu, Huang, Tian, Sun, Liang (2024), “Acupuncture for Migraine; a Sydtematic review and meta regression of Randomised controlled trials, Complimentary Therapies in Medicine, 86.

• Tsai et al, (2020), “Acupuncture reduced the medical expenditure in migraine patients - Real world data of a 10 year national cohort study”, Medicine, 99:32.

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