Migraine is a recurrent throbbing headache, often preceded by an aura of flashing lights, blurred vision, and numbness in the limbs. The pain on one side of the head appears for about a few minutes to an hour and gradually increases until nausea and vomiting occur and the sensation improves, and the headache is relieved in a quiet, dark environment or after sleep. Most patients with typical migraine have periodic attacks, and they are more common in women. Most patients may experience blurred vision, flashes of light, hallucinations, blind spots, eye swelling, emotional instability, and almost all patients are photophobic, and a one-sided headache occurs after a few minutes, mostly in the front of the head, temporal region, around the eyes, and temples. The headache may be confined to a certain area or may extend to the whole half of the side. When the headache is severe, there may be a feeling of pulsating blood vessels or a feeling of jumping out of the eyes. The pain usually peaks in 1~2 hours and lasts for 4~6 hours or more than 10 hours, and in severe cases, it can last for several days. The common type of migraine accounts for 80% of the cases, and there may be no obvious aura symptoms before the onset of migraine. The headache is slowly aggravated, and the pain can be on one or both sides, or the whole head, and the pain is less severe than typical migraine. Cluster migraine is characterized by the absence of aura symptoms and the timing of each attack is approximately the same. The headache often starts suddenly, lasts 30 to 120 minutes, and can occur several times in a day. Clinical manifestations may include swelling of the eyes, tearing, conjunctival congestion, nasal congestion, sweating, burning sensation on the painful side of the face, etc. In typical cases, thickened and curved scalp blood vessels are seen. Secondly, migraine also includes: familial hemiplegic migraine; abdominal pain migraine; neuropsychiatric migraine; basilar artery migraine; retinal migraine; menstrual migraine. Triggering factors Life habits Mental-psychological stress, depression or drastic mood changes; improper diet, certain foods can cause changes in the internal environment of the body thus leading to migraine; excessive exercise; irregular sleep, such as lack of sleep, too much sleep, irregular sleep, etc. Drugs Oral vasodilators; contraceptives; drugs such as hormone replacement drugs; frequent use of ergotamine, opioids, tretinoin and other single-ingredient painkillers (barbiturates, caffeine, isooctenamines). Climate Wind, cold, humidity, heat and other climates and drastic weather changes tend to trigger migraine. Humidity and heat tend to cause mood swings, irritability, and loss of appetite, leading to impaired qi and blood flow, and triggering migraine. Wind and cold tend to damage the body’s yang energy and cause blockage of the meridians, thus triggering migraine. Therefore, migraine patients should regulate their emotions and avoid cold food and cold environment sudden changes in altitude; moving from one time zone to another within a short period of time; stimulation of strong light (such as TV screen, magnesium lamp, strong sunlight, etc.); stimulation of noise; air pollution; stuffy rooms; certain strong perfumes; long time electromagnetic radiation (such as people who work in front of computers for a long time are prone to suffer from migraine). Female physiology After puberty, the onset of headache increases significantly in women compared with men; headache attacks are common when women have menstrual periods; after menopause and during pregnancy, headache decreases. Treatment Chinese medicine There are many ways to treat headache in Chinese medicine, such as dahurica, which has obvious pain-relieving effect; Chuanxiong, which has the effect of activating blood circulation and siltation, opening the channels and relieving blood vessel spasm; Chrysanthemum, which clears the liver and brightens the eyes, etc. Through specific analysis of the degree of the disease and physical constitution, Chinese medicine treatment can reduce the number, time and frequency of headache attacks, improve the symptoms, and then make the headache disappear gradually. Acupuncture In accordance with the principle of differentiation of symptoms and meridians, acupuncture, moxibustion, or bloodletting, or local acupuncture, or distant acupuncture, or both, and the flexible use of auricular acupuncture, wrist and ankle acupuncture and electroacupuncture can often significantly relieve pain and reduce the number of attacks, or even cure headache. Diet should be light, in addition to rice, noodles staple food, can eat more vegetables, fruits and other nutritious food, such as hen, pork, pig liver, eggs, and cinnamon, lotus seed soup. If you are hot, you can take mung bean soup, adzuki bean soup, etc. Avoid smoking, alcohol, rooster, crabs, shrimps and other hairy products, as well as coffee, chocolate, dairy products and other foods containing high tyramine.