Acupuncture for Headaches & Migraines
“I have been treated by Stephen over the past few years for various reasons: hip pain, sinus problems, shoulder pain, tennis elbow, but mainly for migraine, which I now have four treatments a year to help keep it under control.” |
“Acupuncture has helped me be more confident, cleared migraine headaches, backache and general ups and downs in life.”There is no typical migraine.
It can start as a visual disturbance, or a general fuzzy feeling in the head, and/or a pain which develops either locally and then spreads, or remains in one location, either up the back of the neck, and/or side of the head, upon the forehead, and then settles in one of these spots or concentrates in the temples or behind the eye.
By this time, the intensity and thumping nature of the pain, and sometimes accompanying nausea and even sickness, can be so severe as to virtually disable the sufferer so that they need to lay down to recover and sleep off the symptoms.
Migraines are described in different ways according to their type – such as cluster or ice-pick migraines etc.
Migraines are generally one sided, and usually prefer to repeat on that side in later attacks, but occasionally they can exhibit on the other side than is normal. They can occur as a result of neck problems, stress, allergies (especially food), as part of the menstruation cycle, for no rhyme or reason, or as part of general disturbance in the nervous system.
Acupuncture is very good at rebalancing the nervous system, both locally and generally. It can efficiently relax the neck and shoulders and therefore ease the tension that may lead to tension headaches/migraines.
In cases such as these, I enjoy very good results in treating these symptoms with acupuncture – usually 6-10 treatments are required, with follow ‘top up’ treatments as required.
In other types of general migraines, including those linked to the menstruation cycle, I am generally able to ease the symptoms, sometimes eradicating them completely. In some, difficult cases, especially those that do not respond well even to strong conventional medication, it’s not always certain that the acupuncture can control these symptoms either.
My general advice, based upon my experience, is that trying acupuncture to control migraines is worth a try, for at least 6 treatments – and if there are signs of improvement (either partial or sometimes completely) then maybe it is worth having an extended course of treatments. If no results are achieved within 6 visits, then it’s probably fair to conclude the treatment might not be worth pursuing further.