Acupuncture for Headaches & Migraines
Headaches and migraines are a common complaint in the clinic and, fortunately, we can help! The goal is always to alleviate your pain as efficiently as possible, while also addressing the root cause so the headaches go away and stay away.
Immediate Headache Relief with Acupuncture
Headache relief from acupuncture can feel nothing short of magical. I LOVE treating headaches for this reason. I start by gauging the level of pressure, pain, or discomfort on a scale of 1-10, and we use that as a benchmark for our progress.
People tend to be quite surprised as their headache begins to evaporate in real time and the number of severity decreases more and more. It’s rare that we can’t get the headache or migraine down to a 0 or 1/10 by the end of the session, and patients report that the relief lasts and the headache doesn’t return.
That means that scheduling a visit on a headache or migraine day is a great idea. But can treatment still work if you can’t sync up your acupuncture treatment with headache or migraine day? The answer is yes.
If you are plagued by headaches on the regular, then scheduling a series of acupuncture treatments would be recommended. These would typically be scheduled weekly, but a more or less frequent cadence may be recommended based on your particular situation.
How does acupuncture help headaches and migraines?
Releasing endogenous endorphins to alleviate pain
Relaxing muscle tension
Regulating blood flow
Regulating the nervous system
Soothing stress
Promoting hormone balance
Types of Headaches We Treat
Headaches and migraines come with all sorts of personalities, so don’t worry if you don’t see yours listed. For the sake of simplicity, these are some of the more common situations:
Migraines (with a variety of symptoms including light and sound sensitivity, vomiting, vision changes, etc.)
Neck tension headaches
Jaw clenching headaches
Concussion or TBI headaches
Hormonal headaches
Acupuncture for Migraines
My most recent migraine patient reported that she was experiencing weekly migraines at work. A few weeks into her treatment, she realized that she hadn’t had a single migraine since starting acupuncture! Not all cases respond so dramatically so quickly to acupuncture, but
Acupuncture for Neck Tension Headaches
Modern people spend a lot of time looking down. Possibly hours and hours per day. Looking down at a phone or laptop has become such a natural part of life that we hardly realize we are doing it. This posture poses a huge problem for the neck.
An adult human head weighs about 10 pounds, and it’s supposed to balance comfortably on top of the spine. When you spend as much time looking down as most of us do, your upper back and neck muscles are constantly engaging and tightening to counterbalance the forward weight of the skull.
Enter: the occipital headache. This is the headache that starts at the base of your skull and wraps up and around the top of your head to your eyeballs. It’s often triggered or worsened by stress, because a lot of us store stress as muscle tension in our neck and shoulders.
Acupuncture with cupping is phenomenal for this type of headache. Acupuncture provides a “reset” for the tight muscles in your upper back and neck, helping them to relax and return to normal function. We also like to add cupping to the upper back and guasha for the neck, therapies that feel incredible and help wring out the muscles and stretch your fascia to make way for fresh blood flow to the whole region. The treatment as a whole relieves stress and regulates the nervous system, leaving you calmer and more resilient to the inevitable stressors that may come your way.
Acupuncture for Jaw Clenching Headaches
Do you clench your jaw or does your dentist tell you that you grind your teeth? Chances are good that you also get headaches. These tend to be the headaches in the sides of your head or behind your eyes that make you want to rub your temples.
The first thing I tell clients with this type of headache is to make a meditation out of releasing the tension in your jaw. Don’t hold your teeth together all of the time. When at rest (say, driving in your car or typing on your computer), keep your lips closed but add some space between your upper and lower molars as though there is an imaginary marble holding your teeth apart. This is a great mindfulness exercise, and it will help you start noticing the unnecessary tension that you hold in your body.
Step two? Come in for acupuncture. We will work directly on the tight muscles around your jaw, while also helping to unwind the underlying emotional and physical tension that causing you to clench up even in your sleep (and out of your conscious control). Herbal medicine can be very powerful for these types of headaches as well, because it can alleviate stress and anxiety while nourishing and softening your muscles so that they can be more relaxed.
Acupuncture for Concussion Headaches
Concussion recovery takes time. However, you can greatly accelerate your healing process with regular acupuncture treatments. I recently helped a 40-year-old woman with debilitating post-concussion headaches, brain fog, and fatigue to feel 80% better in just 3 sessions. She came in for her 4th visit and reported, “My husband even commented that I’m acting like myself again.” She was thrilled.
If you have suffered a traumatic brain injury, your brain needs lots of sleep to heal. Make sure to give yourself ample opportunities for sleep, first and foremost. To further jumpstart your brain’s healing, we recommend scheduling 1-3 acupuncture treatments a week for the first several weeks post-concussion.
Acupuncture for Hormonal Headaches
Premenstrual headaches and migraines are very common. Chances are, if you are getting hormonal headaches, you are also experiencing other symptoms like breast tenderness, irritability, or even depression in the days or weeks preceding your period. The good news is that can treat all of those symptoms simultaneously.
The body needs the right balance of estrogen and progesterone to be symptom-free in the luteal phase (the phase of our cycle that precedes the menstrual phase). Premenstrual headaches are typically the result of too much estrogen or too little progesterone, and the most effective treatment is a combination of acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine that helps to relieve symptoms while also balancing hormones.
I also give homework. Because fantastic liver function is required to help our bodies process out excess hormones, making a daily practice of supporting liver health can be a game changer. Here are three simple suggestions:
Drink lemon water. Make a daily pre-breakfast ritual of drinking a mug of warm water with the juice of half a lemon. This simple ritual promotes the release of bile, which not only prepares your body to digest your breakfast, but also has an important impact on your hormones. Bile is critical for hormone balance, because it binds to metabolized estrogens and then ushers them out of your body via your bowel movements.
Think twice about happy hour. Alcohol may be fun, but it significantly impairs estrogen metabolism in the liver. The unfortunately result can be too much estrogen floating around in your system, and that spells trouble. Don’t underestimate the power of alcohol to drastically worsen your PMS.
Eat your broccoli! Broccoli is amazing for so many reasons, one being that it contains DIM (diindolylmethane), which supports health estrogen metabolism in the liver. All the cruciferous veggies have it, including kale, cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. I recommend cooking these veggies (instead of eating them raw) and aiming for 1-2 cups per day.
Preventing Headaches Long-Term
Acupuncture is highly effective for headache and migraine treatment and prevention. It usually takes a series of treatments to reap the full benefits of acupuncture. If you have had your headaches for a while, or just suffered a traumatic brain injury, it’s going to take more than a single treatment to reverse your condition, so be patient. We are working to solve your headaches from their root cause. This holistic approach to healing your headaches is very different than popping an Ibuprofen or Excedrin, which don’t have an effect of preventing headaches and migraines over time.
We would be delighted to help you achieve a headache- or migraine-free life. Please reach out if you have questions about how we can help!
