Essential oils and acupressure points for headaches.
Essential Oil Book Club
This morning I had a bad migraine and I pulled out a book about using essential oils on acupressure points that you can reach for yourself. It helped. So did a little meditative quiet time. Some sodium/salt may also have helped and getting back on my supplement routine. I had been doing well with the filled daily boxes but took four days to refill them again. Habits take time to master.
Acupressure with Essential Oils - A Self-Care Guide to Enhance Your Health and Lift Your Spirit, by Merina Ty-Kisera, LAC.
Page 111, Chapter: Headaches be gone, shares that Cypress, Lavender and Lemongrass can sooth muscle tension and pain, and to apply at points
GB20 - at the base of the skull, fleshy bumps to the side of the center, where you rub anyway when your head hurts with muscle tension in the neck.
and
LI4 - press the webbed area between your thumb and first finger with your other thumb and fingers.
Those points really helped relax my tense muscles and headache.; I used Lemongrass followed by Cypress.
and Cypress on GB41, the outer side of your foot, more towards the ankle than the toes, also helped; (or Peppermint, but I can't use salicylate rich mint oils).
Congestion and sinus pressure was part of the headache
Page 112 suggests Lavender or Eucalyptus for that type of pain on points BL2 (near the inner end of the eyebrows), LI20 (on the cheekbones near the nostrils and ST3 (about an inch towards the ear from LI20)
Fennel oil is wonderful for histamine excess reactions. It can be calming within a few minutes. It also helps congestion and lymphatic drainage.
There are many potential causes of migraines.
Inadequate magnesium, B vitamins, zinc or sodium may all be migraine factors, or poor sleep or dehydration with too little water, sodium, potassium, magnesium or calcium - if our electrolytes are off, than headaches and muscle cramps are likely. being overly acidic within the body can also be a cause of muscle cramps and tension at the back of the head.
ESSENTIAL OILS FOR CONGESTION & OVER-ACIDITY WITH MUSCLE CRAMPS - LEMONGRASS AND FENNEL ARE TWO THAT MIGHT HELP.
I was given an encyclopedia style book, The Essential Life - The World’s Most Trusted Essential Oil Reference Guide, 9th Ed.. It is brand specific for doTerra blends, but the phytonutrients properties of single oils are not brand specific as long as an essential oil is of reasonable quality.
Essential oils that are made from edible plant material like Lemongrass and Fennel are considered GRAS, Generally Regarded as Safe to consume, by the US FDA. Essential oils are used in commercial foods for flavor and as food preservatives (Rosemary is frequently seen on labels for that purpose).
The process of making an essential oil is distillation based so any impurities would be from the metal containers being used or from oil soluble herbicides or pesticides which have permeated our ecosystems even when a farm is not directly using the agrichemicals.
I flipped open the book to page Lemongrass and found that my Thai soup additive is a decongestant for nose or body/edema and topical use was recommended for painful muscles and joints. It also can help cramps and lactic acid excess and frozen shoulder/stiff muscle pain - use on the areas of concern.
That sounded good and I grabbed my Fennel bottle too as it sounded good at the time too. I then flipped to page Fennel and yes, it also has decongestant properties and topical use on the chest/throat was recommended. It also can help edema, fluid retention and cystitis, overly acidic conditions, gout, kidney stones, and muscle cramps or spasms.
The Essential Life - The World’s Most Trusted Essential Oil Reference Guide, 9th Ed., 2023, Total Wellness Publishing, (oillife.com) *The publishing company and sales site are independent from doTerra but the book is about doTerra products and was compiled from a group of contributors. It has a lengthy citation list - from the copyright information page. This book was a gift from my doTerra consultant. It is very nice, with beautiful photography.
Thanks Tara! (Sign up link for doTerra) if you would like to get the 25% member discounts for free, the annual membership will be waived. Tara Wagner would be your consultant too then. She provides good education about essential oil use as well as some gift incentives and a private Facebook community for questions.
Minor flaw with the book for my old eyes - I do need reading glasses for some of the page's font. There is not always enough contrast between the font color and the background photo on some pages for visually impaired readers - in part due to the gorgeous photography as the background on many pages. It is a lovely book.
Intuitive self-care can get things wrong, but the idea is that often our gut instinct is guiding us to something we need. That is in the realm of “mystery”, but why should we expect to understand everything about everything?
Slathering on lots of lemongrass and fennel essential oils, a few drops in my massage oil mix, really did seem to help and I repeated it this morning after a Magnesium chloride bath. A few drops for the sole of each foot, a few more for the chest and sore shoulders. When using a couple oils you could mix them or layer one, then the other on the target area. Acupressure points could also be held for more healing potential.
~~~
That last section was from a previous post with more information about Traditional Chinese Medicine, liver health and congestion. I have had some liver issues which got better with some changes on my part. The essential oil books and some TCM books have been helpful along with tips from my Substack readers. Thanks!
Disclaimer This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.
I couldn't find much research involving magnesium and fibromyalgia but there is this:
Effects of transdermal magnesium chloride on quality of life for patients with fibromyalgia: a feasibility study
Deborah J Engen et al. J Integr Med. 2015 Sep
Conclusion: This pilot study suggests that transdermal magnesium chloride applied on upper and lower limbs may be beneficial to patients with fibromyalgia.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26343101/
JD - Excellent sleuthing. This dig yielded transdermal results decades ago for post surgery pain & scar healing... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyl_sulfoxide
It works in small doses, thus the medical establishment has poo-pooed it. One must be attentive of sourcing & the industrial grade stuff that may contain impurities.