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Headache
头痛 〔頭痛〕tóu tòng
Pain in the head. The head is the confluence of yáng, and the brain is the house of clear essence. Distinction is also made between medial headache and hemilateral headache, although the term headache usually refers to medial headache. The qì and blood of the five viscera and six bowels ascend to the head. Headache may be attributable to the six excesses or to internal damage, and arises by pathomechanisms such as obstruction of yáng qì, lodging of turbid evil in the upper body, ascendant liver yáng, and essence-marrow or qì-blood depletion, etc. The nature, severity, and duration of headaches are all important factors in diagnosis. New headaches (headaches of recent onset) often indicate external disease. Distinction is also made according to the exact location of the pain. The location of the headache can show which channel is affected, and hence which channel should be treated.
Patterns
Greater yáng (tài yáng) headache (太阳头痛 tài yáng tóu tòng): Pain reaches from the head down the neck and back.
yáng brightness (yáng míng) headache (阳明头痛 yáng míng tóu tòng): Pain in the anterior forehead, sometimes stretching down to the eyebrow bone (superciliary arch).
Lesser yáng (shào yáng) headache: (少阳头痛 shào yáng tóu tòng) Pain on the sides of the head or in the temporal region.
Greater yīn (tài yīn) headache (太阴头痛 tài yīn tóu tòng): Pain and heaviness in the head accompanied by abdominal fullness and spontaneous sweating.
Lesser yīn (shào yīn) headache (少阴头痛 shào yīn tóu tòng): Pain stretching into the teeth and deep into the brain.
Reverting yīn (jué yīn) headache (厥阴头痛 jué yīn tóu tòng): Pain at the vertex stretching to the corners of the forehead, accompanied by a subjective feeling of counterflow qì ascent with retching in severe cases.
Headache
External Contraction
Internal Damage
Qì vacuity headache Yáng vacuity headache - Blood vacuity headache
- Yīn vacuity headache
Liver yáng headache - Food damage headache
- Liquor damage headache
Six-Channel
Greater yáng (tài yáng) headache yáng brightness (yáng míng) headache Lesser yáng (shào yáng) headache Greater yīn (tài yīn) headache Lesser yīn (shào yīn) headache - Reverting yīn (jué yīn) headache
Miscellaneous
Acumoxatherapy: Select points given under individual types and add the following points according to the location of pain. For frontal headache, add