About This Course

Headaches plague thousands of Americans each year.  They are one of the most common complaints I hear in my practice as an Amma Therapist. Rare is the person who hasn't suffered through a headache.  According to WHO (World Health Organization) about half of the adults in America will have a headache each year - and many of those suffer headaches repeatedly.

As with other disharmonies, Asian/Chinese medicine's approach to headaches is different from western medicine's.  Asian medicine practitioners focus on the treating the acute (relieve the pain) and then work to find the cause or root patterns causing the headaches.  Yes, you read that as a plural - headaches.  Most headache sufferers are prone to several different types of headaches- ouch. Ideally we work to identify the client's patterns of disharmony and to treat the root cause to prevent and/lessen the frequency of headaches. 

My purpose with this class is to give an overview of the patterns according to Asian/Chinese medicine that can lead to headaches, the steps you can ta. Covering the western causes and assessment would make for a very cumbersome blog, instead I will drop in little side notes where the western and eastern meet.

What this class covers - 

• A brief introduction to the foundational principles of Asian medicine

• Common causes, symptoms and triggers

• The patterns and types of headaches according to Asian/Chinese medicine  - using 8 Principles and Zhang Fu (organ theory).

  • Exterior invasion (acute) patterns of headaches - wind, cold, etc.

  • Interior (chronic) patterns of headaches interior- Liver blood deficiency, Gallbladder damp heat, stagnation, etc.

  • Organs and Channels most commonly involved

  • Quality of pain

  • Tongue and pulse assessment