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'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.

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. 

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

-Dennis-