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        Cluster Headache Help and Support >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies >> Raquetball in the shoulderblade
        
(Message started by: JakeT on Mar 31^st, 2006, 6:11pm)

Title: Raquetball in the shoulderblade
Post by JakeT on Mar 31^st, 2006, 6:11pm

I'm new to this web site. Had a cluster a couple of weeks ago. Have had CH's since high school. Only recently self-diagnosed, thanks to this site.

Mine are definitely triggered by tension in my neck and back. My girlfriend, a massage therapist, gave me a massage a while back when I was in the midst of a cluster. I said, "my neck is killing me." She started working on my neck and I kept saying, "lower," until she was working down in my lower shoulderblade area. She said, "honey, that's not your neck."

Anyway, I've found that one thing that helps when I'm getting a headache is to lie on my back on the floor with a raquetball lodged in my shoulderblade. (My massage therapist girlfreind recommended the raquetball technique.) I kind of move around on it until it hits the right spot. It's an intense self-administered accupressure treatment. It varies how long it takes for it to knock out a headache to the point where I can get up headache-free. Sometimes it only takes a few minutes; other times I've had to lie there for a good hour. But while I'm doing it, my headache goes away. It can be boring and painful, and I've ended up with a bruised muscle the next day, but it can be a real magic bullet sometimes.

Title: Re: Raquetball in the shoulderblade
Post by Chip80 on Apr 3^rd, 2006, 11:20am

I have been able to abort an attack, in its early stage only, by doing something very similar.

I sat on the floor with my back to the sofa where my wife was sitting. She put her heel in between my shoulder blade and spine (right where the muscle was spasming/knotting), and I push back on her heel HARD and hold it until the tension releases. According to my massage theropist, doing this actually decreases/stops the blood flow to the area which stops the muscle from cramping/spasming. My CHs were brought on by a shoulder injury and resulting scare tissue. Unless you had some type of shoulder/neck/back injury, I'm not sure why this approach would work?

However, I always cease getting massages when in a CH cycle, because the massage brings on a fierce attack. Probably because the net affect of a massage is to increase blood flow to the head and neck, which is what you don't want to happen during a CH cycle.