Migraines and Headaches

Migraines & Headaches: Painful and Limiting

Western medicine and Chinese Medicine recognize two categories of headaches: primary and secondary. A primary headache is a clinical condition, not a symptom of another disorder. Primary headaches include tension headaches, migraines and other less common headaches. Secondary headaches are the result of other medical conditions such as dental disorders or head injuries.

Tension headaches are the most common and tend to be recurrent, lasting anywhere from minutes to days. These headaches are typically experienced as a dull pressure, mild to moderate in severity.

Migraines are an extremely common disease condition that affect more than 35 million men, women and children in the United States alone. Almost everyone has either experienced migraines themselves or knows someone who has suffered from them. For many sufferers, migraine is a chronic disease that significantly diminishes their quality of life. Migraines are usually one-sided, pulsating or throbbing, and moderate or severe in intensity.

Conventional treatment of primary headaches including migraines focuses primarily on medication with well over 100 drugs available. In some cases surgical treatments or medical devices are recommended to prevent or treat symptoms. Choosing one or a combination that might work is time consuming and can have lasting and unpleasant side effects.

Natural Solutions for Migraines & Headaches

Emotional stress is a well-known trigger for primary headaches. People living in modern fast-paced environments with high levels of stress have imbalanced autonomic nervous systems in which the parasympathetic (or relaxed state) is inhibited, while the sympathetic (or stressed state) is activated. This type of imbalance can cause a cascade of health conditions beyond headaches including heart disease, insomnia, hypertension and menstrual problems.

At Alchemy Radiant Health our focus is to restore balance to the emotional, mental, and physical ecosystems of the body. Acupuncture is a very effective and proven treatment for restoring balance that addresses the primary nervous system causes while also minimizing painful headache symptoms. A series of acupuncture treatments, together with powerful but safe Chinese herbal formulas has produced startling improvements for many of our patients.

We also recommend personalized diet and lifestyle changes for each patient to reduce the incidence of stress factors that lead to headaches and other disorders.