Acupuncture for Headaches and Migraines in San Francisco
Tension headaches that build through the workday, or migraines that wipe out whole days? We use acupuncture, gentle needling of tight neck muscles and hands-on work to help make headaches less frequent and less intense.
Sound familiar?
- A tight band or pressure around your forehead or temples
- Headaches that build through a long day at your screen
- A stiff neck and tight shoulders that come with the pain
What our patients say
5.0 on Google from 92 reviews
I was introduced to Andrew by a friend who dubbed him as nothing short of magical. After experiencing his expertise firsthand, I couldn't agree more. Andrew's mastery of the human body and its intricacies truly feels like a kind of magic. I've been to other specialists for my chronic upper back and neck pain, but Andrew is different. He focuses on treating the actual problem, not just masking the symptoms. For the first time, I walked out of an acupuncture session and went back to exercising without feeling any pain. It was a game-changer. I feel as if I've been given a brand new back. Honestly, I never thought a life without back pain was possible until now. While I was also working with Andew some other health issues came up that couldn’t be diagnosed by western medicine. His thoughtful and holistic approach immediately made me feel understood and valued. Throughout our sessions, he would patiently explain the various points he was working on or the sensations I was experiencing, shedding light on what was going on internally within my body. Thanks to him, I now have a deeper appreciation for how imbalances in one area can send ripples throughout the entire system. He was able to find the root cause, guiding me slowly but surely on the path to recovery. I feel blessed to have met Andrew, he really has changed my life and I’m grateful for that.
I would strongly (strongly!) recommend Acupuncture for Athletics for both athletes and non-athletes alike. Not only does Andrew help with injury recovery, pain management, and stress relief, but he creates a relaxing and positive environment that enhances the work that he does and leads you to feel better both physically and mentally after each visit. And beyond acupuncture and massage, Andrew goes the extra mile to provide guidance on how to address specific pain-points and injuries, or to simply ensure that you are feeling and performing your best. Again, I can't recommend Acupuncture for Athletics enough!
Andrew is amazing! Very caring and concerned about your health and well being. He genuinely is a very kind person.
Andrew is a cornerstone of my care team. He successfully unwinds my ills before they can become chronic problems.
I came to Andrew after nearly six excruciating months of not being able to run. I had a seemingly minor Achilles tendon injury that simply refused to heal, defying every modality I tried. I hoped Andrew, a specialist in sports injuries, could break the deadlock. The simple answer is that in three visits, I was running again, hardly able to believe my good fortune. The more complicated answer runs deeper. Andrew’s work doesn’t just address physical injury; he works on spiritual and emotional injury and stress too. I didn’t realize that my physical injury was bound up with emotional trauma, but he did, and he figured out how to disentangle them so the healing process could start. The process can be painful; emotional injuries that have lodged in your body have to work their way out through muscle and bone, like a physical illness. But it’s also both profound and unexpected. As another of Andrew’s clients said, he is a true healer.
Andrew’s massage and acupuncture techniques have seen me successfully through back-to-back marathons seven weeks apart, plus two active pregnancies and a record-breaking racing season in between. He is a veritable genius in his field — a true healer.
Andrew Castellanos has helped my Achilles tendinosis and tendinitis with acupuncture, not only getting the swelling down, but also massaging the area after. His therapeutic work has enabled me to continue dancing at a high level without having to take a break, so I’m able to dance with injury due to the therapeutic work that Andrew does.
As a professional dancer, I rely heavily on Andrew throughout the performance season to literally fix me in order to get me back onstage. I have chronic problems with my knee and my shoulder, and the combination of acupuncture with electric stimulation and heat has been tremendously helpful. Andrew only needs five minutes to find exactly where he needs to work, and the results are fantastic. His acupuncture work is also gentle, and doesn’t leave me sore the next day — in fact, it’s one of the only therapies I feel comfortable receiving right before a show. Andrew does great deep tissue work as well, and he is very responsive and attentive as a therapist. I’d highly recommend him to dancers, athletes and non-dancers alike.
In our career it is very important to stay physically healthy, because our dance career is very short. We rehearse, work out every single day, and very often, because of the physical pressure from practicing so hard, we get injuries and surgery. My story is about my back, foot and wrist. I joined San Francisco Ballet a year ago. The first day of work, during ballet class, I hurt my back. I have had problems before with my wrist, and sadly, later on with the tough season, my foot got hurt. Luckily, I was recommended to Andrew Castellanos. I started with a few visits a month, and quickly saw results, so I made sure I finished my treatments. Thanks to Andrew, I was able to finish my successful season here. Now I have to spread the word…
I could not recommend Andrew enough! He has so much knowledge on the human body and can figure out quickly what areas need work. I went in with major back pain that kept me from lifting weights or running, and after a few sessions I am pain free.
Gosh, I'm so happy I found Andrew! Thanks to him, I avoided going down a surgery route for my injury! In June 2022, my left knee started acting up (my best guess is overcompensation for gluteal tendonitis I was treating) but I pushed through to backpack 264 miles on the John Muir Trail. When I finished my trek, my left knee was pretty unhappy and I couldn't even get in and out of my car without feeling like a jigsaw puzzle. I tirelessly saw dozens of providers over the next year - chiropractors, physical therapists, orthopedists, massage therapists, etc. All had their own theories - soleus muscle, calf strain, chronic exertional compartment syndrome, etc. The complexity in my case was that my pain was not in my knee itself - it was on the left side in between my knee cap and calf. Despite my knee MRI showing meniscus tears, inflammation, tendonosis, etc. the doctors insisted we treat the symptoms, not the MRIs. So, I got a calf MRI, hip MRI, and an EMG, all of which were negative. Then, one doctor recommended oral Prednisone, and he told me I should see results better than Advil for pain management. It did nothing. It wasn't until I was finally referred to one doctor who noticed something in my knee MRI and caught that there is excess fluid in my proximal tibiofibular joint (PBTJ), and that area tracks with where I feel my pain. To test his suspicion diagnostically, he recommended an ultrasound-guided cortisone injection in my PBTJ to see if that reduced my pain. The pain did decrease (which was good), but it wasn't gone. The doctors informed me issues concerning the PBTJ are rare, and that they needed to refer me to one of the only specialists in the country for this. That specialist happened to be in Minnesota, and when I checked his website, he was only seeing patients for surgery. I did not want surgery. I felt completely defeated, unsure where to go next. In May, I was recommended by someone who also had a challenging journey with injuries (and was able to return to running and hiking) to try acupuncture. I was surprised, since I had not considered Eastern Medicine before for a sports injury. The person specifically recommended I search for an acupuncturist who specializes in athletes, and that led me to find "Acupuncture for Athletics." :) My first appointment with Andrew was May 30, and he patiently listened to my whole ordeal and reviewed all of the documentation I brought (MRIs, doctor's notes, etc). He assured me he treats the root cause, which I appreciated because I did not want to do a band-aid fix only for this to return again, and that he has hope I can feel better. We started off with cupping along my left leg to encourage the inflammation to dissipate, and then we did needles in my leg. Oof, I remember one session when Andrew placed a needle near my PBTJ - I screamed SO loudly lol. But once all of the needles were in, it slowly felt like a meditative experience, and I was able to relax into it. Over my 7 sessions with Andrew, I began to notice the needles felt less painful. In the beginning, I remember feeling the pain just in walking over to Andrew's office. By the 6th session, I realized I wasn't thinking about my pain anymore. I did one more session to be sure, and I was in disbelief that I actually felt pain-free! We decided to go a month testing how the pain fared without regular sessions, and so far so good! The pain flares here and there, but in a MUCH less capacity than before. Throughout this whole process, Andrew was kind, patient, and determined. He was committed to solving the underlying issue, and he was flexible and accommodating to me - whether I wanted to address my left knee or start tackling similar pain that was creeping up on my right knee. Had it not been for Andrew, I would have likely chased surgery because I was running out of ideas. I appreciate you, Andrew! If you're nearing your wits' end with a chronic injury, please go see Andrew and give it a good ~5 sessions if you can. Wishing everyone out there good luck on their chronic pain journeys! You got this!
Andrew applies his knowledge of the body and expert techniques to address affected muscles both for maintenance during training and related to injury. His combination of acupuncture and massage helps to open up areas and find the place to target. I have seen Andrew in the past for recovery post concussion and most recently for routine maintenance while training at a high level for my next marathon. I highly recommend Andrew and am lucky to have him as a part of my support team to stay healthy! - Katie Hynes, competitive runner -
Does this sound like you?
Headaches come in different shapes, and the pattern tells us a lot. These are the ones we hear about most in the treatment room.
If a few of these sound familiar, an assessment helps us work out which type you have and what sets it off.
- A tight band or pressure around your forehead or temples
- Headaches that build through a long day at your screen
- A stiff neck and tight shoulders that come with the pain
- Throbbing pain on one side, with nausea or sensitivity to light
- Zigzag lines or flashing lights before a headache starts
- Reaching for painkillers several days a week
What's behind your headaches
Most recurring headaches are tension-type headaches or migraines. Neither is caused by anything dangerous, but both can take a real toll on work, sleep and training.
Tension-type headaches are the most common kind. They feel like steady pressure or squeezing, often with aching neck and shoulder muscles. Stress, screen time, eye strain, jaw clenching and poor sleep are frequent triggers.
Migraine is a neurological condition. Attacks usually last from 4 hours to 3 days, according to the NHS, and some people get a warning aura first. Common triggers include hormonal changes, stress, tiredness, skipped meals and too much caffeine.
Common triggers
- Stress and long hours at a screen
- Tight neck and shoulder muscles
- Poor or irregular sleep
- Skipped meals and dehydration
- Hormonal changes around your period
- Jaw clenching or teeth grinding
Tension headache or migraine?
Plenty of people have both. Knowing which one you're dealing with on a given day helps us plan treatment, and helps you manage it at home.
| Compared on | Tension-type headache | Migraine |
|---|---|---|
| How it feels | Steady pressure or a tight band, mild to moderate | Throbbing or pulsing, often severe |
| Where | Both sides, forehead, temples or the back of the head | Often one side of the head |
| Other symptoms | Tight, tender neck and shoulders | Nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, sometimes an aura |
| Moving around | You can usually carry on | Activity tends to make it worse |
| Where we focus | Neck, shoulders, jaw and stress | Preventing attacks between episodes and easing their triggers |
A word on painkillers
Taking painkillers too often can backfire. The NHS advises not taking them for headaches on more than two days a week, because frequent use can cause more headaches and make migraine harder to treat. If that sounds like you, talk to your doctor. Acupuncture can sit alongside that plan.
Who gets headaches
Headaches don't care whether you're an athlete or an accountant. These are the people we treat for them most often.
People we see most
Related problems we treat
How we treat headaches
Treatment is mostly about prevention: fewer headache days and milder attacks. We combine whole-body acupuncture with work on the neck, shoulders and jaw.
- AcupuncturePoints in the head, neck, hands and feet chosen for your headache pattern.
- Dry needlingFor trigger points in the upper trapezius and the muscles at the base of the skull, which can refer pain into the head.
- Scalp and ear acupunctureOne of Ali's specialties, useful when stress and poor sleep feed your headaches.
- CuppingTo loosen tension across the upper back and shoulders.
- MassageHands-on release for the neck, shoulders and jaw.
Who performs dry needling in California?
In California, dry needling is performed by licensed acupuncturists. Physical therapists in California are not currently authorized to perform dry needling. Andrew, Suzanne and Ali are all California-licensed acupuncturists.
What the research says
Headaches are among the best-studied uses of acupuncture. A 2016 Cochrane review of 22 trials with almost 5,000 people looked at preventing episodic migraine. About half of those given acupuncture had their migraine frequency cut by at least half, compared with 41% after sham acupuncture. Against preventive drugs, acupuncture did at least as well, and far fewer people quit because of side effects.
A companion Cochrane review of 12 trials found similar results for frequent tension-type headaches: 51% cut their headache frequency by at least half with acupuncture, versus 43% with sham. In two trials that added acupuncture to routine care, far more people improved than with routine care alone.
Newer trials agree. In a 2017 JAMA Internal Medicine trial of 249 people, real acupuncture cut migraine attacks more than sham or a waiting list, and a 2020 BMJ trial found it reduced migraine days more than sham.
The NHS also lists acupuncture among the preventive options for migraine.
In short
- Well studied for preventing migraine and tension headaches
- Fewer side effects than many preventive drugs
- Results vary from person to person
- Works best alongside sleep, stress and trigger management
Your first visit and your plan
Your first visit takes about an hour. How many sessions you'll need varies, and we'll give you an honest estimate after your assessment.
Assess
We ask about your headache pattern, triggers, sleep, stress and medication, then check your neck, shoulders and jaw for tight spots that reproduce the pain.
Treat
You'll rest comfortably while needles stay in for a while. Many people find it deeply relaxing, and some leave with a lighter, clearer head.
Afterwards
You may feel calm or a little tired. Drink water, eat normally and go easy that evening. Occasional mild soreness passes within a day.
Track it
We'll ask you to keep a simple headache diary, so we can both see whether your headache days are falling and adjust the plan.
When a headache is an emergency
Very few headaches are a sign of anything serious. A few warning signs can point to a stroke, bleeding in the brain or meningitis, and they need emergency care straight away.
If you or someone with you has any of the symptoms in this list, call 911 or go to the emergency room. Please don't book with us first.
See your doctor soon if headaches are new or changing, are set off by coughing, sneezing or exercise, come with vomiting, or come with jaw pain when eating or a tender scalp. We're glad to work alongside your physician.
Call 911 if a headache comes with
- A sudden, extremely severe onset, like a thunderclap
- Weakness or numbness in the face, arm or leg, or slurred speech
- Confusion, drowsiness or a seizure
- Loss of vision
- A high fever, stiff neck or a rash that doesn't fade
- A recent head injury
Who'll treat you
Three California-licensed acupuncturists trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine, so we ask about sleep, stress and your cycle as well as the pain itself. Ali uses scalp acupuncture when stress feeds your headaches, Suzanne has advanced training in women's health, and Andrew brings 25+ years of hands-on experience.
Andrew Castellanos
L.Ac, CST · Clinic owner
Tension headaches driven by a tight neck, shoulders and jaw.
- Myofascial release and acupressure for neck and shoulders
- Dry needling for stubborn trigger points
Ali Hakimi
L.Ac
Headaches and migraines tied to stress, poor sleep or tension.
- Headaches and migraines are among what he treats most
- Scalp acupuncture for stress, anxiety and insomnia
- Extensive knowledge of classical herbal medicine
Suzanne Lange
DACM, L.Ac, CMT
Headaches linked to your cycle, pregnancy or postpartum changes.
- Advanced training in women's health and postpartum care
- Trigger point therapy for a tight neck and shoulders
- Japanese-style acupuncture
Acupuncture for migraines near you
Looking for acupuncture for migraines near you in San Francisco? Our clinic is at 2920 Webster Street in Cow Hollow, a short walk from the Marina and Pacific Heights. All three of our practitioners treat migraines, and we're open 7:30am to 9pm, seven days a week, so you can book between attacks at a time that suits you.
For migraines, treatment usually happens between attacks rather than during one: a short course of regular sessions aimed at making attacks less frequent and less intense, then spacing visits out as things settle. Bring your headache diary if you keep one. If you'd rather not drive with a migraine coming on, the 45 bus stops on Union Street, one block away. See directions, parking and hours, or book an appointment.
Pricing and booking
Headache treatment takes place in a regular appointment, combining whichever techniques suit you. There's no headache package to sign up for.
We don't bill insurance, but we provide a superbill for possible out-of-network reimbursement, and we accept HSA and FSA cards and all credit cards. Our clinic sits on Webster Street between Union and Filbert, close by if you're looking for acupuncture in the Marina.
Appointments
- 60-min initial acupuncture & assessment
- $225
- 45-min acupuncture follow-up
- $195
- 60-min acupuncture/massage combo
- $225
- 75-min acupuncture/massage combo
- $265
- 90-min acupuncture/massage combo
- $300
Headaches and migraines FAQ
Does acupuncture work for migraines?
Research suggests it can help prevent them. A 2016 Cochrane review of 22 trials found acupuncture reduced how often migraines happen, did better than sham acupuncture and worked at least as well as preventive drugs with fewer side effects. Results vary from person to person, and we'll tell you honestly how you're responding.
Can acupuncture help tension headaches?
Yes, for many people. A 2016 Cochrane review of 12 trials found acupuncture helped people with frequent tension-type headaches have fewer headache days, compared with both sham acupuncture and routine care. We also work on the tight neck, shoulder and jaw muscles that often feed these headaches.
How many sessions will I need?
It varies with how often your headaches come and how long you've had them. Prevention takes a series of visits rather than one, and we judge progress by your headache diary. We'll give you an estimate after your first assessment.
Can I come in during a migraine?
Most people come in between attacks, because the goal is to prevent them. If you're in the middle of a bad attack, call us before your appointment and we'll decide together whether to go ahead or reschedule. If the headache feels different from your usual pattern, see a doctor.
Can I keep taking my headache medication?
Yes. Acupuncture works alongside your current medication, so don't stop or change anything without talking to your doctor. If you're taking painkillers on more than two days a week, mention it to your doctor, since frequent use can lead to more headaches.
Where do the needles go?
Usually a combination of points on the head, neck and shoulders and points further away, such as the hands and feet. If tight neck muscles are part of your pattern, we may also use dry needling or massage there. Everything is explained before we start.
Does it hurt, and are there side effects?
The needles are very fine, and most people barely feel them going in. Side effects are usually mild, such as slight soreness, a small bruise or feeling tired after treatment. Serious problems are rare when acupuncture is done by a licensed practitioner with sterile needles.
Can you help hormonal or period-related migraines?
Hormonal changes are a common migraine trigger. We take your cycle into account when planning treatment, and Suzanne has advanced training in women's health. Please also keep your doctor in the loop, especially if your migraines have changed.
Do I need a referral?
No referral is needed to book. If your headaches are new, changing or come with any warning signs, we'll ask you to see a physician before or alongside treatment.
Where can I get acupuncture for headaches near the Marina?
Our three licensed acupuncturists treat tension headaches and migraines at 2920 Webster Street, in Cow Hollow on the edge of the Marina. Ali Hakimi brings training in scalp acupuncture for stress and sleep, Suzanne Lange has advanced training in women's health for hormonal headaches, and Andrew Castellanos has more than 25 years of hands-on experience.
Can I get there by bus if I'd rather not drive with a headache?
The 45 Union/Stockton stops on Union Street, one block from the clinic, and the 22 Fillmore runs along Fillmore Street, one block west. Taking Muni means you can sit back on the way home instead of driving. If you'd like to plan the trip, see our directions and parking.
References
- Linde K, et al. Acupuncture for the prevention of episodic migraine. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2016.
- Linde K, et al. Acupuncture for the prevention of tension-type headache. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2016.
- Zhao L, et al. The Long-term Effect of Acupuncture for Migraine Prophylaxis: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2017.
- Xu S, et al. Manual acupuncture versus sham acupuncture and usual care for prophylaxis of episodic migraine without aura: multicentre, randomised clinical trial. BMJ. 2020.
- NHS. Migraine.
- NHS. Headaches.
- Cleveland Clinic. Tension Headache: Symptoms and Treatment.
Ready for fewer headache days?
Book an assessment at our Cow Hollow clinic, or call us to talk it through first.
Visit us in Cow Hollow
2920 Webster Street, between Union and Filbert. A short walk from the Marina, Pacific Heights and the Presidio.
Address
Acupuncture for Athletics2920 Webster Street
San Francisco, CA 94123 Gate code: in your booking confirmation email
Hours
- Every day
- 7:30am – 9:00pm