Do you need to treat aura?
A migraine is an intense headache that lasts between 4 and 72 hours and can cause pain on one or both sides of the head. It is usually a type of recurring headache. Commonly, pain might also be accompanied by what we call aura that occurs before and/or during the migraine episode.
Symptoms of aura for migraines could include:
Light and/or sound sensitivities
Pain behind the eyes
Pain around the temple
Nausea and/or vomiting episodes
Throbbing or pulsing sensations in the head (some may hear the pulsing loudly in the ears).
In some cases, the discomfort with aura is could be severe, do we need to treat the aura? Would treating the aura of migraine help to reduce the pain and frequency from migraine headache? Today I would like to discuss with the commenly seen migraine with nausea and vomitting.
Acupuncture treatment and migraines
In my clinic observation, many patients who experience migraines with aura, often accompanied by nausea and vomiting, can benefit from acupuncture treatment to restore overall body balance. In most cases, as nausea and vomiting become less frequent, migraine episodes also decrease. The majority of patients who notice improvements in their digestive system through acupuncture eventually experience fewer migraine occurrences, and in some cases, the migraines may cease altogether.
Case Study
A 49-year-old woman with a history of chronic migraines since her teenage years, typically lasting 72 hours, came to our clinic seeking relief as her symptoms had worsened and were no longer manageable with the pain medications she had relied on. Her migraines were accompanied by severe aura, including nausea, vomiting, pressure pain around the right eye, and light sensitivity. During most migraine episodes, she would be bedridden and unable to work.
The patient was highly sensitive to needles in the head and neck area, so we focused on addressing abdominal tension (for acupuncture students, this involved the Stomach (ST) and Conception Vessel (CV) channels). After four treatments, her aura symptoms—particularly nausea and vomiting—were effectively controlled. Interestingly, after the second treatment, while her nausea initially worsened, her overall pain level during migraines decreased.
By the sixth treatment, the patient reported an entire week without migraines—a first in her adult life. Not only did the migraines stop, but the aura, including nausea and vomiting, also disappeared. This was a transformative experience for her, as she hadn’t felt like this in all her adult years.
With continued treatment, the patient is now migraine-free and no longer needs pain medication. She can enjoy most foods with little restriction and participate in activities she had previously avoided. Now, she only need to come in every 1–3 months, when she feels slight tension behind her eyes, allowing her to keep migraines and aura at bay.
Interestingly, the sensitivity and fear of needles on the head is also gone, the patient is now not afraid or sensitive to the needles on the head any more. This might fit for the old teaching from acupuncture classics: “Fear is a form of deficiency”.
Conclusion
While most practitioners primarily treat Migraines with aura as one type of headache and focus on the pain in the head, migraines can also be related to the digestion and reproductive systems. Oftentimes, when we treat the digestive system and regulate menstrual cycles (most migraine patient experience migraine episodes related to the menstual cycle- we will expand on that in the next article), the migraines will be controlled. As a result, the aura experienced by patients may not only be the symptoms, they can also provide clues to the root of the problem, which may lead to the solution.
