So last Saturday my wife and I decided to get each other a two hour couples massage for X-Mas. Nice!  Now I've had massages before but this was a true deep tissue massage like nothing I've ever had, WOW.  My back was a wreck, even the thearpist commented how much work I needed.

So she is working me over pretty hard and while working on my traps on my left side I start feeling a small shadowy pain up the left side of my head from the base of my skull to my temple. Not painful but reminicent of a cluster.  You all know the feeling I'm sure.  I've been in remission since April 07 and I haven't had even the slightest headaches.  I didn't really think much about it at the time because it disappeared after she moved on to the next muscle group. There was a lot of muscle pain involved in this massage, not in a bad way, and I sure was relaxed afterward.

For the next two days I had very mild shadows on the left side, the side of my last and worst episode.  It seemed to go away by Tuesday but then last night about 6 pm, relaxation time, it started again. Bad enough that I found myself rubbing on that little tight spot on my temple, over and over again.  It's still so mild that I don't want to think that I've come out of remission until I have a full blown head pounder, maybe it's wishful thinking.

Ever have a massage trigger a headache?  I'm wondering if it just tweaked the same nerve that usually is involved in my clusters and the feeling is just scaring me.

I need to be careful with massages...........actually I need to be careful NOT to let my blood circulation on the CH side get so screwed up in the first place.  When my neck & shoulders are extra tight, my "regular attacks" are more severe and longer.  The vicious circle in my case is that if I get massaged (increased blood circulation), the sudden *blood rush* can dilate the blood vessels to start a CH----at least that's what it feels like.

I'm still in my cycle, so I have no idea if out of cycle massage would bother me...

If the back of my head is touched, there's a chance I'll start having shadows, or a full blown attack. I think it's due to the occipital nerve in my case, at least.

I get regular deep massages and haven't had any problems either in or out of a cycle.  However, I had a face massage after one of my last acupuncture treatments and ended up with the worst headache that night that lasted for hours.  Might not be a connection, but maybe?

Well in the end it didn't trigger my cycle. It was a couple of iffy days but I haven't come out of remission.  :)

In the middle of my cycle I used one of those massage chairs and it brought on an attack that lasted 5 hours...one of the worst I ever had!

I wonder if it has more to do with the relaxation.  You sure do get relaxed in the midst of a good massage.  

-Dennis-

i dont know about the relaxation, but i will say i have had attacks that seemed to be started by either a massage or acupunture. i think it has something to do with a higher rate of blood flowing to my brain, but im not sure.