We report here the case of a 40-year-old female patient who presented at our outpatient clinic complaining of headache related to multiple systems, including the bowels, the viscera and meridians. She had two types of headache with different characteristics, which were enhancing factors and alleviating factors : (1) Squeezing pain in the posterior occipital area related to the kidney meridian, and (2) Pain in the lateral occipital area and areas deep beneath the eyes and ears, related to the large intestine, the stomach, and the triple energizer meridian and gallbladder meridians. Following a traditional logic-based therapy, we diagnosed her with edema due to a kidney yang deficiency and a liver-qi ascending counter flow. Both types of headache were alleviated and resolved, after shimbuto was administered to clear the channels by both draining the water due to warming yang and soothing the liver, and sending down abnormally ascending liver qi. The original cause of the disease was the kidney yang deficiency, and the immediate cause was the liver qi ascending counter flow. We believe that these affected each other fundamentally and incidentally because the lateral occipital pain, which was the incidental symptom, was resolved with shimbuto.
Headache ; Liver ; Pain ; Kidney ; System