zhēn tóu tòng
Also rendered: True headache (keeps the contrast with the six reversed headaches) · Genuine headache (plain, and it sounds like a headache that is real) · Central headache (interpretive, and it is not in the text)
Reviewed · 2026-10-25
At a glance
The headache that is not a branch of anything else. The chapter gives six 厥頭痛, each with its own pulse and its own channel, and then this one: the pain is severe, the whole brain aches, and the hands and feet go cold to the joints — death, not to be treated. The distinction is the chapter’s whole method. A 厥頭痛 is reversed qi that can be chased to its channel; the true headache is the disease at the centre, with the extremities already cold, and no channel left to needle. Later commentators read the cold limbs as yang failing at the root while the evil holds the head.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| This site | true headache | the text's own contrast |
| Literal | the headache proper | exact, and it is stiff |
| Clinical | headache with cold extremities | clear, and it is a description |
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Reading path
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