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Fourteen years ago, Claire, a successful consultant to non-profits came to see me for help with chronic migraines from which she had suffered for many years.  After her third treatment, she was showing steady improvement.  Her migraines were quite severe and we worked on them weekly for a six month period. They continued to decrease in duration and severity until they ultimately disappeared entirely. One day a few weeks after she started working with me, she came in for a treatment and said in a joking tone, “What are you doing to me?  Since I’ve been coming to see you, I’ve been less angry with my ex husband!”

I was not surprised. I had taken notice of the anger that she had toward her ex-husband as she had told me a few stories about their relationship. In acupuncture there is a common thread between anger and migraines, so that by addressing the migraine, the side effect was to quell standing anger.

When I heard the stories about her ex-husband, I immediately thought of what is referred to in Chinese medicine as an imbalance of the liver, or liver Yang rising, which translates into liver deficiency. This is not too different from the weather, in that heat rises in our bodies much as it does in the atmosphere.  Heat in the body tends to rise and carry with it excess energy to the head, which then creates the migraine as well as a propensity for quickness in emotional changes or anger.  By strengthening and re-balancing the Yang and the energy of the liver, Claire not only cleared her migraines, but her anger also dissipated.

This is why we call acupuncture a holistic medicine as there is no separation between the physical and the emotional body.  Claire’s case is a perfect example of this because she did not come for anger issues, but what she did come in for had a direct relationship with another prominent issue in her life.

Another interesting twist to the story was that although Claire was 39 at the time, she had only ovulated with the help of medication and she had irregular menstrual cycles her entire life.  In the course of treatment, her menstrual cycles became regular and she began to ovulate.  Some people might consider this a mixed blessing, but when your body is in tune all the body’s systems begin to function properly.

We’ve kept in touch over the years. She’s come in to see me for other minor tune-ups, a sore back, a twisted knee, and other little things here and there. The migraines, however, are gone. This year she came back at the suggestion of her husband and daughter. She told me that she was driving them both batty with mood swings relative to menopause. I’ve been able to help her both physically and emotionally with this. She knows when things are out of whack when either her husband or daughter tell her “time to see Joelle again”.