Headaches: How Acupuncture Can Help Ease Pain
Posted on April 15, 2008
Headache is a serious and often debilitating health problem exacting a tremendous toll on affected individuals and their families. Current statistics from the National Headache Foundation estimate a total of 45 million Americans are afflicted with headaches. Among that total, nearly 28 million suffer from painful migraines. In addition to the high personal costs of headache pain, the socioeconomic burden to American employers for missed work and reduced productivity is $13 billion per year.
In spite of these considerable personal and social costs, it is often difficult to find effective long-lasting treatment for headache sufferers. Western pharmaceuticals are often a necessary component in managing headache pain. However, the National Headache Foundation recommends acupuncture among other treatment strategies as an effective tool in the long-range treatment of headache pain.
It states: “These ancient treatments for pain relief appear to work by stimulating the release of endorphins, the body’s natural pain killing substances. Relief from both pain and nausea, a decrease in the frequency of headache and a reduced need for treatment medication have been shown.”
Chronic headache pain is often triggered by accumulated stress and associated muscular tension. As stress increases, muscles tighten, blood flow is reduced, and a cascade of chemical reactions begin that may end in headache pain. Acupuncture points have been shown to be electrically conductive areas on the skin’s surface. By needle stimulation at these points, pain-modulating endorphins are released. Stimulation of acupuncture points has also been shown to create changes in blood pressure and to regulate blood flow. The accumulated effect of these physiological changes can reduce headache pain.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) explains the treatment effect of acupuncture somewhat differently. TCM believes that the body is sustained by a system of interconnected energy pathways called meridians. These meridians are thought to have: 1) external trajectories along the body’s surface where acupuncture points are located and 2) internal trajectories penetrating to the core of the body and its organ systems.
In a healthy individual, the meridians are open and flowing freely. However, any sustained blockage in the flow of energy in one or more of these pathways may produce discomfort, a loss of function and ultimately, pain.
In the treatment of headache, an acupuncturist focuses on the primary symptom of pain, but also considers this symptom in relationship to overall health patterns. By assembling a multifaceted diagnostic picture of the whole person, the acupuncturist determines the meridians that may be blocked and the acupuncture points that will help to restore the flow of energy. Treatments are initially effective because they work at a local and exterior level for the relief of pain, and also at an interior, in-depth level where functional imbalances contributing to headache pain can be restored.
Author: Sher Demeter, L.Ac., a faculty clinician at Northwestern Health Sciences University.