Are you suffering from headaches? If you are, then you are only in among the hundreds of millions of Americans who suffer from headache problems. As many as 256 million Americans experience headaches according to the New York Times. Unfortunately, if you keep on suffering from recurrent headaches, you probably know by now that conventional Western modalities have no known cure for your condition. You may consider yourself very lucky if you have found a drug that temporarily alleviates the pain without causing a lot of side effects in your body. If you’re unlucky, there are no drugs that can help you out with the pain. For those who cannot seem to find sufficient relief from the headache discomfort, they should know that acupuncture can be a powerful cure for their pain. What’s more, whether you’ve had your headache just now or whether you’ve been suffering from it for decades, acupuncture can help break the cycle of pain once and for all.
How Does Acupuncture Resolve Headache?
The source of the headache and the headache pain itself is addressed by acupuncture. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a holistic type of treatment that not only treats the symptoms of a condition but also its underlying cause. Usually, headaches are caused by imbalances occurring within the body. When you experience headaches and are under severe stress, as well , you may be right in saying that the stress you are in right now is the one that’s responsible for your headaches; however, stress by itself cannot produce a headache. Headaches arise only if you suffer from internal imbalances. Stress is the trigger that sets off the headache. A person could say, for example, that the wind is the reason trees fall down during a strong storm. If this is the only reason, how come not all trees have been uprooted? The healthy trees are flexible enough to withstand the storm. The rigid or sick trees are the ones that get knocked down. This is a good analogy for disease and people. Like the wind, stress would not trigger health problems such as headaches if the person’s underlying health was really good. Acupuncture helps the patient become healthier, stronger and more functional just like a tree that is flexible and healthy.
How Health Can Be Boosted with Acupuncture
On a certain perspective, it’s not easy to envision how the sticking of tiny needles into certain parts of the body can increase health or treat a condition. Electricity flows when you power on a switch that opens a circuit that in turn turns on a light bulb. This principle is also followed in acupuncture treatment when acupuncture needles are inserted into points on the skin stimulating energy flow to influence organ function in the body. By stimulating specific acupoints mostly located on the legs and arms, the Chinese discovered that they can convey messages to certain internal organs. Also, by manipulating the needles in such a way that they act like a dimmer switch on the body they can send a specific type of message to these organs.
How did the Chinese manage to send a specific and intended message in order to treat a condition? This great discovery is one of the hidden mysteries of Chinese medicine. A specific acupoint combination can correct a specific type of imbalance that underlies a condition. In the treatment of headaches, about 20 various kinds of imbalances are seen as triggers for different forms of headaches. Some headaches are felt daily and are mild but persistent, some are achy and dull and felt in the back of the head, there are headaches that are stabbing and sharp and emanate from the temples, and there are migraines that are excruciating that are accompanied by light sensitivity and auras, to mention just a few. Your acupuncturist or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner need to first see the kind of imbalance responsible for your headache. Next, he/she will develop a point prescription that addresses ideally the imbalance. He/she then inserts the needles using precision and skill to send the right messages to the organs to treat your headaches.
The benefits of acupuncture last for a very long time once the proper acupuncture treatment is implemented. There have been a number of people who never returned for a follow-up or tune-up treatment simply because their headache has been completely cured. There are some who may occasionally come for follow ups when they feel the need. But for most patients, the benefits become their new normal. This is only logical since the body began existing in health before imbalances and health problems set in. It is the job of acupuncturists to restore the body to its proper balance; and once there, it tends to remain in balance.
Amy-SuiQun Lui, L.Ac.
Asian Health Center
27059 Grand Army of the Republic Hwy
Cleveland, OH 44143
Tel: (440) 833-0983