Question

I have been going to an acupuncturist (who is Chinese and speaks very little English) for my terrible headaches, and I am just wondering, why he is putting needles in my legs, stomach and hands and not in my head?

Answer

Ha. Good question. This is particularly confusing to those of us who grew up in the West with the Cartesian model of medicine where we tend to treat the part that is giving us problems directly (if we are suffering with headaches, we look for problems in the head, etc..). The Chinese medical model however, has a different approach. Because it is based on a holistic system, it is the entire body that is assessed to discover where the imbalance is that is creating the headache, instead of treating the head directly. In TCM there are many, many reasons that one may suffer from a headache, and each person’s headache must be flushed out and the root of the problem discovered so that it can be treated. Often, the cause of headaches can be an excess of yang or fire energy in the body which flares upwards causing things like headaches, red eyes, anger, and bitter taste in the mouth. To treat this, the yin, or water energy of the body must be supplemented which is often done with points in the lower legs, we would also often treat the lower part of the body in an attempt to draw the heat down and anchor it which would alleviate the symptoms.

So, although in Chinese medicine there are many causes for headaches, the acupuncturist is always looking for the root cause so that it can be corrected, so that often means treating points in other parts of the body and not the head directly.