help for migraines
Migraines are increasingly common and extremely debilitating. While there are a wide variety of signs and symptoms people experience when they have migraines, if you or someone you know struggles with them, you know they can really be life changing.
So how can acupuncture help?
First, let’s talk about how we get to a place where migraines happen. In Classical Chinese medicine, we have a concept of mediumship; let’s think about mediumship like oil in a car. As it gets used, depending on the extent, we run into problems, so we want to make sure we check the oil levels in our car and that we take it in for regular oil changes, as well.
Depending on our genetics, we may have more or less mediumship when we’re born, and then our lifestyle will determine how well we use what we have.
The problem is that modern life has often normalized a lifestyle that makes maintaining healthy mediumship near impossible. Overworking, modern diets, alcohol overconsumption, environmental pollutants, preservatives and other concerning chemicals used in all kinds of products have a taxing effect on our systems.
Enter chronic and autoimmune disease, which practitioners of classical medicine often see as divergent pathology. You can read more about this here, and it will also give you a better background for understanding how rebuilding mediumship can eliminate migraines and other chronic problems that are super difficult to treat from an allopathic perspective.
Divergent pathology is often one-sided and intermittent, which makes migraines a perfect example of this type of pathology. Fortunately, we can rebuild mediumship by using the divergent channels, as well as supporting these treatments with lifestyle adjustments.
What we’re doing when we use divergent channels is rebuilding mediumship so that we can put pathology back into latency (or we could also call this remission).
A person experiences symptoms of a problem when the mediumship is not sufficient to hold it in latency, so the symptoms will often come and go because mediumship is rebuilt by resting and eating well. When the person resumes normal (often hectic) activity, they experience the symptoms again. In autoimmune conditions, returning symptoms are often referred to as a flare.
While it’s important to believe that complete healing is always possible with minimal treatment, the process of rebuilding mediumship is not usually a quick one. Traditional divergent treatments were done for three days in a row with a break for three days. This is usual not possible in modern day, and weekly treatments are usually very effective.
So what lifestyle changes are necessary?
Incorporating high quality animal products into your diet is extremely important for building mediumship.
Eating wet breakfasts is a sort of time released hydration, as is eating soups and stews, as opposed to grilled, baked, or roasted foods.
Drinking bone broth regularly to help hydrate and support the building process. Consider taking high quality collagen supplements.
Getting eight hours of sleep a night and being asleep by 11pm.
Reduce, if not eliminate, coffee and alcohol.
Eliminate high intensity exercise; this is extremely taxing on the yin aspect of the body, as it supports the yang nature of intense physical activity.
