Introduction to Headache (by Syndromes)

In TCM, we approach to diagnose an illness by identifying the real nature that causes it rather than identifying a few symptoms. Often time it is confusing to many as it is indeed necessary to know as many symptoms as possible in order to nail down the syndrome. 

To give a simple example, if one has abrupt fever, headache, myalgia, stuffy nose, rhinorrhea, sore throat, and malar flush with congestion of conjunctival and nasopharyngeal mucosa, we may suspect it is influenza. Further laboratory tests could help to diagnose the illness. However, having diagnosed it influenza is only the first step, we have yet to differentiate, in TCM, if it is Wind-cold, Wind-heat, or with Summer-damp, or if it's the type of exterior-cold-and-interior-dampness (that usually causes gastro-intestinal influenza).

How do we differentiate different syndromes? The answer to that is by analyzing symptoms according to TCM diagnostic principles.

Each illnesses has their own unique representative nature. Therefore there are always some common syndromes to most illnesses. Below are the common syndromes of headaches:

You may find migraine's syndromes and migraine's differentiation according to symptoms on another page.