Hi David or Andrew, In our materia medica we talk briefly about headaches and migraines and the various herbs that come up for specific symptomology of those headaches/migraines. For example with Gan Jiang - you mentioned using it along with other herbs for deficient/cold migraines. Question: Can you list for me the various different migraines and / or headaches that there can be (or at least the general/most common ones)? Example: deficient/cold migraine, hot/dry migraine, etc? Some of these are more dull and achy, while others are more sharp/stabbing...? I am eager to be able to distinguish these from one another. I like lists, and think once I have a list of all of the ways headaches/migraines can be I will be able to think about and identify them, as well as match the right herbs to them. Perhaps you have a document or class specifically on this. Thanks so much for your answer!

The two basic patterns for migraines are excess/heat (which includes liver fire rising headaches and wind/heat headaches) and deficiency/cold migraines (includes wind/cold headaches). We will discuss this more in class as we do the materia medica. On a simple basis excess/heat migraines are expansive, red head, ears or eyes, the person says it feels like their head will explode, cold applications make it feel better and the pain is sharp. Deficiency/cold migraines feel constrictive, the head feels like it's in a vice or a steel band around the head pressing in, hot applications make it feel better, the pain is dull and throbbing.