Migraine affects up to 15% of the UK population - around two thirds of
sufferers are women. An attack can last up to 72 hours, and sufferers
experience an average of 13 attacks a year. A German study published
in the Lancet in 2006 recognised that while acupuncture was successful
in halving the days of suffering, there was no single treatment that
fitted every case.
With this in mind I will talk about what might be called a subset of
migraine sufferers. These are the people whose headache kicks in when
they miss a meal - and almost always when they miss lunch. I have
several friends, men and women, with this condition and have treated
several more.
Most migraine studies revolve around what the sufferers eat, and there
is a large list of possible triggers for the 'ordinary' kind of
migraine - the most well-known being things like chocolate, hard
cheese, caffeine, red wine, cigarette smoke and tannin-containing
foods. The problem with nailing the sources of migraine down is that
often such 'triggers' don't act, so that evidence-based research is
left with the same puzzle it began with since, the onset of migraines
is not predictable with anything like 95% certainty. No one seems to
have studied the timing of food intake and the reasons why it plays a
role in migraine onset.
With the subset I have been observing, however, food timing is
everything. Every sufferer I have dealt with claim that missing a
meal is the almost certain trigger for a headache that will last
easily through into the next day. The headache can be headed off by
taking almost any kind of food in place of the meal they missed -
sweets, potato chips, it doesn't matter. They just need something in
their stomachs within a certain length of time. Is there an element of
psychology in this need? Could it hark back to the stress of missed
feeds when a baby? Hard to examine this scientifically, but it's a
thought. For example, a brother and sister I know well both suffer
this type of migraine. If they do not share a similar pattern of
feeding when babies then maybe they share genes, in which case, this
particular onset of migraine would have a genetic component to its
cause as well as be connected to the state of the stomach.
Not being able to explore genetic causes or those related to
upbringing, what can we sensibly say about this particular form of
migraine from the TCM perspective?
Acupuncturists distinguish between several types of headache pain,
from stabbing or boring to dullness, heaviness or stiffness, and they
see several causes to them. They regard the emotional causes of
headaches as anger, worry, fear and shock; the physical causes as
overwork and excessive sex or, for women, too many children born close
together, and diet. There may also be lingering trauma from head
injuries or invasions by wind and damp. The typical headaches,
however, are caused by the liver-yang energy rising into the head.
For example, if the liver blood is deficient, then the headache will
be at the top of the head; if the headache is the side or in the
temples then this is usually due to an excess of liver-yang or liver-
wind due to deficiencies in the gall-bladder. A migraine occurring
behind the eyes would be due to liver-yang rising or blood deficiency.
(Though headaches in the forehead are said to be due to either stomach
deficiency or stomach heat, or to phlegm and damp; a consequence of a
cold.)
Generally speaking, pain is the result of local kyo conditions, where
Qi is not moving, but migraines are generally sharp sickening pains
with feelings of nausea. The sufferer needs to lie down, since
activity worsens the pain or is just not possible, and they often feel
attacked by bright lights and sounds. Such a condition certainly
suggests yang fire: anything that raises yang, like physical activity
or 'attack' would make matters worse.
In the Qi cycle of movement around the body, the metal yang channel of
the Greater Intestine brings Qi to the head. The head is the place of
most yang in the body, and the energy flows from there, from beneath
the eyes, through the stomach channel to the feet. This pairing of
yang channels is called Bright Yang. In the subsequent movements, Qi
flows towards the face along the Small Intestine channel and then away
from the face and down the back through the Bladder channel. This
pairing is called Greater Yang. The third yang paring in the face and
head is with the Triple Burner and the Gall Bladder, called the Lesser
Yang.
In TCM the Small Intestine is not often considered alongside the
stomach meridian, even though the SI belongs to the Fire element and
is part of the process of bringing earth into being. But it's function
is an essential companion to the assimilation and making use of the
external influences of the world. With the stomach, we digest events
and extract the nourishment we need to pursue our goals. The small
intestine separates the pure fraction of the Qi obtained and passes it
first to the spirit or shen soul (heart) - the emperor - who uses it
to integrate all the five souls together and to create our awareness,
intelligence and, most of all, insight (insight being a function of
yang). When there is heat in the SI, this influences the heart and
produces agitation, and a sense of 'dismemberment' in one's
perceptions. (The impure fraction is passed to the bladder.) This is a
key point since many of my clients report that one of the sensation is
of being 'torn apart' by noise and events around them.
So, in the shiatsu, and in the absence of counter-indications, I look
for signs of jitsu in the stomach channel, paying attention to S20 and
S12, and to SI, especially points SI16,17 (Heavenly Reception), and 18
(meeting point with TB and GB) . I also give deep hara massage
circulating clockwise, and stimulate the Bladder channel to expel.
So,are there any conclusions we can draw about the physiology of the
pain. Is it in the head or does the pain originate in another part of
the body? The stomach is fed by the celiac artery direct from the
heart. The first branching of the artery occurs at the stomach. The
stomach veins connect with the portal vein which empties into the
liver, but in amongst all this is the vagus nerve which connects the
brain with the lungs, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine,
the pancreas and the large intestine and colon. It affects the
function of diverse organs like heart rate and the workings of the
larynx. If the vagus nerve is implicated in migraines, then it
suggests that some other actions for the patient to take on his or her
own to try to relieve the headache. But this, I will leave to the
next blog.
Please don't hesitate to comment on this article, and especially if
you disagree with my conclusions.
Here's a good read. My latest book:
Essential Personalities, and why humans found love, adapted to
monogamy and became better parents
ISBN 9780954483142
Gravity Publishing
+44 7092 119084
see it here on Amazon http://tiny.cc/paeGD
or read the beginning chapters here on Scribd.com
sufferers are women. An attack can last up to 72 hours, and sufferers
experience an average of 13 attacks a year. A German study published
in the Lancet in 2006 recognised that while acupuncture was successful
in halving the days of suffering, there was no single treatment that
fitted every case.
With this in mind I will talk about what might be called a subset of
migraine sufferers. These are the people whose headache kicks in when
they miss a meal - and almost always when they miss lunch. I have
several friends, men and women, with this condition and have treated
several more.
Most migraine studies revolve around what the sufferers eat, and there
is a large list of possible triggers for the 'ordinary' kind of
migraine - the most well-known being things like chocolate, hard
cheese, caffeine, red wine, cigarette smoke and tannin-containing
foods. The problem with nailing the sources of migraine down is that
often such 'triggers' don't act, so that evidence-based research is
left with the same puzzle it began with since, the onset of migraines
is not predictable with anything like 95% certainty. No one seems to
have studied the timing of food intake and the reasons why it plays a
role in migraine onset.
With the subset I have been observing, however, food timing is
everything. Every sufferer I have dealt with claim that missing a
meal is the almost certain trigger for a headache that will last
easily through into the next day. The headache can be headed off by
taking almost any kind of food in place of the meal they missed -
sweets, potato chips, it doesn't matter. They just need something in
their stomachs within a certain length of time. Is there an element of
psychology in this need? Could it hark back to the stress of missed
feeds when a baby? Hard to examine this scientifically, but it's a
thought. For example, a brother and sister I know well both suffer
this type of migraine. If they do not share a similar pattern of
feeding when babies then maybe they share genes, in which case, this
particular onset of migraine would have a genetic component to its
cause as well as be connected to the state of the stomach.
Not being able to explore genetic causes or those related to
upbringing, what can we sensibly say about this particular form of
migraine from the TCM perspective?
Acupuncturists distinguish between several types of headache pain,
from stabbing or boring to dullness, heaviness or stiffness, and they
see several causes to them. They regard the emotional causes of
headaches as anger, worry, fear and shock; the physical causes as
overwork and excessive sex or, for women, too many children born close
together, and diet. There may also be lingering trauma from head
injuries or invasions by wind and damp. The typical headaches,
however, are caused by the liver-yang energy rising into the head.
For example, if the liver blood is deficient, then the headache will
be at the top of the head; if the headache is the side or in the
temples then this is usually due to an excess of liver-yang or liver-
wind due to deficiencies in the gall-bladder. A migraine occurring
behind the eyes would be due to liver-yang rising or blood deficiency.
(Though headaches in the forehead are said to be due to either stomach
deficiency or stomach heat, or to phlegm and damp; a consequence of a
cold.)
Generally speaking, pain is the result of local kyo conditions, where
Qi is not moving, but migraines are generally sharp sickening pains
with feelings of nausea. The sufferer needs to lie down, since
activity worsens the pain or is just not possible, and they often feel
attacked by bright lights and sounds. Such a condition certainly
suggests yang fire: anything that raises yang, like physical activity
or 'attack' would make matters worse.
In the Qi cycle of movement around the body, the metal yang channel of
the Greater Intestine brings Qi to the head. The head is the place of
most yang in the body, and the energy flows from there, from beneath
the eyes, through the stomach channel to the feet. This pairing of
yang channels is called Bright Yang. In the subsequent movements, Qi
flows towards the face along the Small Intestine channel and then away
from the face and down the back through the Bladder channel. This
pairing is called Greater Yang. The third yang paring in the face and
head is with the Triple Burner and the Gall Bladder, called the Lesser
Yang.
In TCM the Small Intestine is not often considered alongside the
stomach meridian, even though the SI belongs to the Fire element and
is part of the process of bringing earth into being. But it's function
is an essential companion to the assimilation and making use of the
external influences of the world. With the stomach, we digest events
and extract the nourishment we need to pursue our goals. The small
intestine separates the pure fraction of the Qi obtained and passes it
first to the spirit or shen soul (heart) - the emperor - who uses it
to integrate all the five souls together and to create our awareness,
intelligence and, most of all, insight (insight being a function of
yang). When there is heat in the SI, this influences the heart and
produces agitation, and a sense of 'dismemberment' in one's
perceptions. (The impure fraction is passed to the bladder.) This is a
key point since many of my clients report that one of the sensation is
of being 'torn apart' by noise and events around them.
So, in the shiatsu, and in the absence of counter-indications, I look
for signs of jitsu in the stomach channel, paying attention to S20 and
S12, and to SI, especially points SI16,17 (Heavenly Reception), and 18
(meeting point with TB and GB) . I also give deep hara massage
circulating clockwise, and stimulate the Bladder channel to expel.
So,are there any conclusions we can draw about the physiology of the
pain. Is it in the head or does the pain originate in another part of
the body? The stomach is fed by the celiac artery direct from the
heart. The first branching of the artery occurs at the stomach. The
stomach veins connect with the portal vein which empties into the
liver, but in amongst all this is the vagus nerve which connects the
brain with the lungs, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine,
the pancreas and the large intestine and colon. It affects the
function of diverse organs like heart rate and the workings of the
larynx. If the vagus nerve is implicated in migraines, then it
suggests that some other actions for the patient to take on his or her
own to try to relieve the headache. But this, I will leave to the
next blog.
Please don't hesitate to comment on this article, and especially if
you disagree with my conclusions.
Here's a good read. My latest book:
Essential Personalities, and why humans found love, adapted to
monogamy and became better parents
ISBN 9780954483142
Gravity Publishing
+44 7092 119084
see it here on Amazon http://tiny.cc/paeGD
or read the beginning chapters here on Scribd.com
Posts
Such a condition certainly
ReplyDeletesuggests yang fire: anything that raises yang, like physical activity
or 'attack' would make matters worse.