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At bottom, headache is an imbalance of energy — and its form is fire (火). Fire is the shape energy takes when it condenses and rises upward, and that is the root of headache. In Korean Traditional Medicine (KTM), the traditional healing system of Korea also known as Hanbang (한방), this is where a constitution-by-constitution account of headache has to start.
In Summary
- The fire that produces a headache has to be strong — and the organ that generates fire of that strength is the stomach. So headache arises readily in the Earth types, whose stomach is strongest.
- Pancreotonia’s organ hierarchy runs: spleen/stomach > heart/small intestine > liver/gallbladder > lung/large intestine > kidney/bladder.
- What separates Pancreotonia from Gastrotonia is that the liver is stronger than the lung — so there is a marked tendency to gather energy and substance into the liver.
- As a result, headache in this type can be more intense, or last longer, than in Gastrotonia.
- The core of management is letting go of attachment and of a hurried mind, and keeping spicy food and alcohol at a distance.
- Keeping a Renotonia person close by helps too.
The Root of Headache Is Fire
Start with the symptom itself. The root of headache is an imbalance of energy, and the form it takes is fire — the shape of energy condensing and rising upward. That surge climbing toward the head is what presents as pain.
But fire capable of producing a headache cannot be middling; it has to be strong. There are not many organs in the body that generate fire of that intensity, and the one that makes the most powerful of all is the stomach. This is why headache and the stomach turn out to be entangled.
Why Headache Comes Readily to Pancreotonia
Pancreotonia’s organ hierarchy runs: spleen and stomach > heart and small intestine > liver and gallbladder > lung and large intestine > kidney and bladder. The stomach sits in the strongest position. The very organ that produces powerful fire is the most flourishing organ in this constitution — so the conditions for headache are already in place.
Where Pancreotonia parts company with its fellow Earth type, Gastrotonia, is in the order of lung and liver. In Pancreotonia the liver is stronger than the lung, which produces a marked tendency to gather energy and substance into the liver.
That difference changes the character of the headache. A strong gathering quality means the fire is held inside rather than dispersed outward. So headache in Pancreotonia can run more intense, or persist longer, than it does in Gastrotonia.
Managing Headache as a Pancreotonia
The most important part is on the side of the mind: letting go of attachment and of a hurried mind. This type is temperamentally quick to rush, and that impatience transmits straight into stomach fire. When the mind hurries, the fire rises; when the fire rises, the head aches.
In diet, keep spicy food and alcohol at a distance. Both stoke the stomach’s fire directly.
One more thing. It is worth keeping a Renotonia person close by. Pancreotonia and Renotonia stand at opposite poles, and that unhurried quality has a way of holding this type’s impatience in check.
Dietary Reference
Beneficial: pork, egg white and beef; barley, red bean, soy and adlay; shrimp, oyster, sea cucumber, crab, clams, pufferfish, herring, salmon, octopus, squid, eel and most fish; Korean melon, pear, kiwi, watermelon, banana, pineapple, melon, persimmon and strawberry; perilla and perilla oil, tofu, yam, milk, pumpkin, chestnut, pine nut, walnut, ginkgo, mushrooms (reishi especially), goji-berry tea, cucumber, cabbage, lettuce, radish, bellflower root, water parsley, bean sprouts, lotus root, burdock and deodeok. Sweat-raising exercise suits this type.
Harmful: chicken, dog, lamb, goat and venison; glutinous rice, brown rice, potato and corn; seaweeds such as gim, miyeok, dashima and parae; heating foods including spring onion, onion, ginger, mustard, pepper, curry, crown daisy, perilla leaf, young radish and garlic (all spicy food is unhelpful); apple, tangerine, orange, black grape, mango and tomato; sesame and sesame oil, corn oil, brown-rice oil, cinnamon, jujube, pollen, royal jelly, sujeonggwa, cabbage, broccoli and lactic-acid drinks. Exercise that chills the body — swimming, cold-water rubs — is harmful, and overcooking food or eating it piping hot does not suit this type.
Foods not listed here are neither strongly good nor strongly bad, so for a healthy person eating them in moderation is unproblematic. (I don’t keep to the list especially well myself.)
In Summary
Picture headache in Pancreotonia as strong fire rising from the stomach and then being held fast by the liver, so that it lingers. Slow the hurried mind, and cut back the spice and the drink — those two sit closer to the root than any painkiller.
Related reading: Headache Is Heat Above, Cold Below · Dieting as a Pancreotonia
This article reflects the teaching and research of Professor Seungho Baek, Professor of Korean Medicine at Dongguk University College of Korean Medicine, specializing in Pathology and Oncology.
