Patient: Female, age 54
Complaints: Constant, uninterrupted headache since 12 years ago. Most of the pain is in the occiput (back of the skull) and forehead. Forehead pain is more debilitating. She always wakes up in the mornings with headaches of increased intensity. Recent physical therapy relieved the headache from 7-8/10 down to 4-5/10 but it had crept back up to 6-7/10.
Treatment process: The patient comes in for acupuncture twice a week. The first visit temporarily relieved the headache but was significant enough to be encouraging. After the second visit, the patient began to notice less intensity of headaches in morning. By the sixth visit, the patient is noticing several mornings out of the week without forehead pain and less stiffness in the occiput.
Discussion: In acupuncture, the patient’s prior history and current status are often not relevant. Whether a headache is intractable, not properly diagnosed as a certain type, or had failed to get relief with conventional medical approaches, acupuncture often works very well. Acupuncture is successful because it affects the physiology in different ways.
Disclaimer: Acupuncture results may vary since each individual case is different.
