As a child, I grew up having headaches, and they were awful. When my head hurts, it’s hard to think about anything else because you know, the pain is right there, in your head, front and center, demanding your full attention. After having kids, I got my first migraine headaches. (Welcome to motherhood! LOL). That took my headaches up to a whole new level of intensity I never before imagined! Overtime, I was able to fix this imbalance in my body, and now, very rarely do I get a migraine, or any headache for that matter…
So when I see people come into my office with migraine headaches, I really feel for them. I know what it’s like. Sometimes a person suffers from these debilitating headaches day in and day out, with no relief at all.
Many times I’ve heard the phrase, “I’ve just learned to live with them.” Inwardly, my jaw drops every time I hear a response like this because I don’t know how they cope. Under the same circumstances, I would be a crazy lady! And I’m so glad they’ve come to see me because I personally know how powerful acupuncture can be in stopping migraine headaches and ultimately resolving them.
Daily Migraines for Over a Year?
I once treated a woman who had experienced a migraine every single day for more than a year.
After a series of acupuncture sessions, her symptoms began to ease. She started having pain-free days, then pain-free weeks, and months!
Over time, we spaced out her appointments. She reached a point where she had to come in once every six weeks, like clockwork. If she delayed even just a few days, another migraine would come on. Was one acupuncture treatment every six weeks worth it to her to not have headaches? You bet!
The Best Time to Treat a Migraine? Right When It Starts
My husband occasionally gets migraine headaches when he overexerts himself physically. He has learned to stop everything and tell me when the headache is just barely starting. You know those first few symptoms… For him, he’ll start to feel “off.” And then his vision gets a little blurry. Then come the floaters.
He knows that if he just stops and lets me give him a treatment, a would-be-twelve-hour-headache literally vanishes in just 20-30 minutes. He can then resume business as usual, averting the whole headache experience entirely.
A Massage Therapist’s Migraine Story
One of my favorite success stories comes from Amy Beloved, an intuitive massage therapist I used to share office space with.
This is what she shared after her first acupuncture treatment with me, one hour into a migraine:
“My migraines start with the optical aura and sharp sparkly lights that impede my vision. Then comes pain and pressure in my head, neck and ears, usually accompanied by nausea and sensitivity to lights, sounds and smells. But the most challenging aspect is that my mental cognition goes way down during and after a migraine.
When I came to my first appointment with Kristin, I had started with a migraine about an hour prior. She wasted no time starting the acupuncture! She placed the first few needles and asked if my symptoms were starting to ease, which they were, slightly. She placed more needles and asked again about my symptoms.
At that point my symptoms were increasing and so she removed the second set of needles and the symptoms began to decrease once again. She let me rest comfortably for a bit and then rechecked. At that point, many symptoms were gone except the nagging ache at the base of my skull.
She placed needles right where they needed to be and I rested more. At the end of the session, every symptom was gone! However, I knew the real test would be in the next 24 hours… But to my shock, relief and gratitude, I had ZERO residual pain, pressure or sensitivity. Plus, my mental cognition never changed! What a profound healing experience from a knowledgeable and gifted practitioner!”