Can Acupressure Alleviate Cluster Headache and Migraine Pain?

Do you deal with cluster headache or migraine pain? If the answer is yes, then you have a full understanding as to how disruptive they can be to your life. I’ve had friends who have had to cancel appointments because they were put down by their migraines. I’ve also known co-workers who have looked exhausted in the morning because they were up all night with cluster headaches.

Most of those individuals just popped an ibuprofen and hoped for the best. Others have used more severe Western medicine tactics like steroids or medical injections. That is, until they found out about the benefits of acupressure and headache pain.

What Are Cluster Headaches and Migraines?

There are some differences between migraines and cluster headaches, but acupressure can benefit them both. If your pain is stabbing or throbbing and comes with a sensitivity to light, sound or smell, you are probably having a migraine. If the headache pain is immediate and severe and you feel an overall sense of restlessness, your nose is congested, and your eyes are red and watery, it is probably a cluster headache.

Migraines can occur very unpredictably, while cluster headaches usually hit the body at the same time (they are very common in the middle of the night). While migraines come on slowly and then spread across the head area, cluster headaches come on quickly and severe in one individual region of the head.

Migraines may last hours or even days, but cluster headaches usually only last around 15 minutes. That being said, I’ve been told by some patients that they can have multiple cluster headaches throughout the day. In addition, their pain is unbearable – the pain from cluster headaches is almost always severe and disruptive to their everyday activities.

Using Acupressure for Cluster Headaches

Acupressure is the ancient Chinese practice of putting pressure into specific points of the skin to help relieve and alleviate pain. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupressure balances our “Qi,” which is our flow of energy or life source. By placing pressure into specific points of the skin, acupressure can re-balance our Qi and alleviate pain.

How does this all work? Acupressure opens up the “Qi” or vital life force in the meridian lines that allow oxygen, nutrients and blood circulation to reach the areas in the head that needs it. What are meridian lines exactly?

We all have “meridians” in our body, which are energy lines that run from the crown of the head to the base of the feet. Each meridian corresponds to an internal organ, and our organs have energy functions. So, if your energy is out of wack somewhere – your Qi – you need a way to rebalance that specific energy function to alleviate the pain or illness that results.

Basically, we need to keep our energy balanced so that everything throughout our body functions properly. If one of our meridians has a disturbance in energy, pain or sickness can result. So, acupressure is used to keep our “Qi” balanced along the meridians on either side of our body.

Depending on what specific pressure points are pressed, pain and illness will subside. Sometimes the TCM Practitioner will also massage your head, which is wonderful for migraine or cluster headache pain!

Each acupressure treatment can take up to an hour and most patients are instructed to go through around six acupressure sessions for best results. With consistent treatment, acupressure should ease your overall pain and decrease the frequency of migraines and cluster headaches by activating the pathways within your brain that are in charge of turning that pain off.

Does Acupressure Work?

The short answer is…yes. A simple Google search can illustrate many, many patients who have used acupressure successfully to alleviate their migraine and cluster headache pain. In fact, I read a medical journal article that reviewed 22 clinical trials of nearly 5,000 patients who used acupressure to reduce their migraine pain. The results? The headache pain in more than 59% of the patients dropped by more than half!

When you go to your TCM Practitioner for your migraine or cluster headache pain, be prepared for them to focus on the lower area of the back of the head is called “Gallbladder Line 20” (GB 20). More specially, GB 20 is located at the base of the skull and the top of the neck.

The Chinese name of this area is “Feng Chi,” and applying pressure to GB 20 is remarkable at treating headaches (along with eye, neck and shoulder pain, and obstructions of the nasal that are associated with allergies or colds). An added benefit to massaging the GB 20 area is that it has a relaxing and balancing effect on our nervous system.

I hope you now have the knowledge and know-how to use acupressure to alleviate your migraine or cluster headache pain. It is safer than Western medicine options, that are usually either steroid medication, nasal sprays, surgical implantation, or even injections. If you are constantly dealing with unbearable pain in your head, acupuncture is a wonderful and safe option for success.

Learn more about how to use point GB 20 to alleviate unwanted cluster headaches and migraines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw7nLjzHxZo&ab_channel=DrWuHealing