The Oriental Medicine Treatment of Tension Headaches
Chief-complaint: Chronic Headaches
Medical-history: 54 year old female. Daily Headaches mainly tension-type occasional migraines with nausea.
Symptoms: tight neck and shoulders, tight-band sensation around the head, constipation, nightsweats, hot flashes, low libido
Pulse: thin/thready
Tongue: textbook yin-deficiency presentation: red body with no coating
OM-diagnosis: yin-def with heat
Treatment-principle: nourish yin, clear heat
Point-prescription: Tan-style Method
Shen Men (bilateral)
L: PC9, HT8, GB34, ST36
R: LI4, TB5, SP6, LV2.5, KD3
Herb-prescription:
Tian Ma Gou Teng Yin (Gastrodia and Uncaria Decoction) (morning, lunch)
Da Bu Yin Wan (Great Tonify the Yin Pill) (before bed)
Lifestyle-prescription: Told patient to work on posture, showed her doorway stretches, and told her to take walks and keep her eye-level at the horizon to promote better posture.
Results: After 1st treatment constipation improved. Better sleep/less nightsweats
No hot flashes after 2nd treatment
After 3rd treatment no nightsweats
Patient had only 4 headaches in the three weeks after I began seeing her. Two were self-induced with wine. One she got from being irritated by going to a “headache seminar” given by a specialist MD, I thought that was amusing.
Saw the patient 5 times and things seemed to good. She went from having daily headaches for the last 7 years to virtually none in a 6 week period.
My next project would have been the low-libido but she has not returned.
Synopsis: It was a pretty straight-forward case of yin-deficiency. I wish I had another 5000 cases like that one, it would make our job pretty smooth.
Last modified: October 8, 2009 
Posted in: Neurological
