The dread of feeling a migraine coming on can be enough to derail someone's entire day. And sometimes, it can feel like nothing helps. However, one acupuncturist recently shared a simple pressure point tip migraine sufferers can try — and it has helped her patients significantly.
Qianlei Li is a board-certified traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and Licensed Acupuncturist. She also owns Nature's Gift Acupuncture in Alexandria, Virginia. Recently, Li took to Instagram to share a pressure-point tip to help head off a migraine.
"This point can take your migraine from a 9 to a 5!" Li explained in the caption of her Instagram video. The clip showed her massaging her ring finger at a specific point on the same side of the migraine pain. "Press and massage HARD 3 to 5 min until the migraine fades," text in the video instructed.
In the caption, Li offered further insight into how the pressure point helps alleviate migraine pain.
"Migraine in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are related to blockage in certain meridian. This point is on the same meridian that travels along onto your head," she detailed. "Massaging this point brings blood flow and healing energy into the migraine area."
"I recently helped a patient who had migraines every day. When it was bad, it could be so painful as 8/10 pain scale," Li explained in the Instagram update's caption. "Her life became really out of control, because she couldn’t do anything if her migraines got bad."
"We used acupuncture to release her muscle tension, improved blood flow, and generated brain chemicals linked to migraine relief," Li explained. "We used Chinese herbal medicine to reduce inflammation, calm the nervous system, and rebalance the body’s internal energy."
Gradually, the patient's migraines became less frequent and less intense, to the point that when they did happen, "it felt more like pressure and didn’t bother her as much."