Yesterday I had the pleasure (and in some ways the pain!) of a deep tissue massage by Cindy Mollineau, a mobile massage therapist that I found in the Sutton Complementary Health Register.
Cindy came to my house with her own massage table, aromatherapy oils and music. (I was glad for the music - the only chillout music I have are acoustic versions of rock songs it seems!)
Cindy has been practicing deep tissue massage for 6 years. She started training in 2005, and she did course after course - and got hooked on it. (This is something I have heard many alternative therapists say - sometimes they are originally a patient themselves and they are converted.)
In many ways the massage was what I was expecting - Cindy got into the tightest areas of muscles, and worked to ease out some of knots. Needless to say that I felt a lot freer when she had finished, but I continue to have knots the size of golf balls in my shoulders (at least that's what they feel like to me). This is not because Cindy didn't do enough - she did more than enough. It is simply a consequence of having left these knots to form of their own accord for so long that they seem rooted in their place, and really I think the best way to eliminate them would be a week's worth of 2 hour massages.
Maybe I will treat myself to that at sometime.
You can find Cindy's website here.
Showing posts with label deep tissue massage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deep tissue massage. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Action Week
Ages ago, I decided that doing several things in one go to target my headache would be a useful experiment.
So in the last 5 days, I've had my own little headache action week.
Last Thursday, I had a 2 hour sports massage. It was brutal at times, but I wanted to start loosening my knots, in order to help the Botox, that I had booked in for Saturday, to work.
I still felt pretty knotted up afterwards, but it did help. I came home and did a hypnotherapy relaxation session from CD as soon as I got back. I wanted to help my muscles relax as much as possible.
On Saturday I had Botox treatment. The first time I had Botox for my headache, it helped somewhat, but that was 6 months ago now. I saw a different doctor this time, at a different clinic, and I have a review session in 2 weeks. This doctor explained the muscles in my head, and why he'd put the Botox in the particular places. When he showed me which muscles he'd be injecting, they started to hurt more in anticipation (or a last offensive attack?) The doctor was jovial, and I can't wait to go back haha!
I did another hypnotherapy relaxation session over the weekend too. I get fidgety, it's hard to stay still for so long. But it does make me feel quite relaxed.
Today, I had a good Raynor massage from Dave Taylor. We get on very well, and he knows my body very well too. When he finished, I lay there in headache-free bliss for a few moments.
Today is the first day that the Botox starts getting to work (3 days after treatment, 14 days maximum it takes to work), and my headache pain has been minimal. It has barely spiked above a 5 today, and has rested mostly at a 2 or 3! Walking around made it worse at times, and some of the pain has probably come from dehydration. But mostly the worse pains I've felt today have been muscular. So that's something!
I just wish I had the time, and the money, to have more regular treatments.
Maybe now is the time to start Yoga again, while my head has a chance.
So in the last 5 days, I've had my own little headache action week.
Last Thursday, I had a 2 hour sports massage. It was brutal at times, but I wanted to start loosening my knots, in order to help the Botox, that I had booked in for Saturday, to work.
I still felt pretty knotted up afterwards, but it did help. I came home and did a hypnotherapy relaxation session from CD as soon as I got back. I wanted to help my muscles relax as much as possible.
On Saturday I had Botox treatment. The first time I had Botox for my headache, it helped somewhat, but that was 6 months ago now. I saw a different doctor this time, at a different clinic, and I have a review session in 2 weeks. This doctor explained the muscles in my head, and why he'd put the Botox in the particular places. When he showed me which muscles he'd be injecting, they started to hurt more in anticipation (or a last offensive attack?) The doctor was jovial, and I can't wait to go back haha!
I did another hypnotherapy relaxation session over the weekend too. I get fidgety, it's hard to stay still for so long. But it does make me feel quite relaxed.
Today, I had a good Raynor massage from Dave Taylor. We get on very well, and he knows my body very well too. When he finished, I lay there in headache-free bliss for a few moments.
Today is the first day that the Botox starts getting to work (3 days after treatment, 14 days maximum it takes to work), and my headache pain has been minimal. It has barely spiked above a 5 today, and has rested mostly at a 2 or 3! Walking around made it worse at times, and some of the pain has probably come from dehydration. But mostly the worse pains I've felt today have been muscular. So that's something!
I just wish I had the time, and the money, to have more regular treatments.
Maybe now is the time to start Yoga again, while my head has a chance.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
At War with my Head
Life got in the way of me posting on this blog. But telling a colleague today about everything I've done to try and cure myself made me realise that I need to get this all down. I need to help other people. I need for my own sake to document the pain and the problems.
I've been trying to keep a headache diary for the last few weeks to help identify any triggers. I haven't done a headache diary for many years and I remembered why once I started doing this one: they are impossible to keep track of. Well, not impossible, but the only way I could record every fluctuation is if I didn't work all day and literally sat at home waiting for them in order to write them down.
From what I've noted so far, triggers include: walking, the cold, sitting still, not eating, not drinking, eating and drinking, sleeping too much, not sleeping enough.
I am all for control, ok, but there is just no way I am going to be able to control all these things that I might see as triggers.
Not eating and drinking - ok, I'll just eat or drink something. Cue trigger from eating or drinking. And I am being way more careful or what I'm eating these days.
I can't not walk. I can't avoid the cold in this country. And my job requires me to sit still at a desk. I take regular breaks, but this doesn't seem to help.
I have a cold at the moment which really hasn't helped but I can't stop that either really. I think the massive pains I'm getting in my right temple and sinuses (and weirdly, stabbing pains in my left ear that feel like someone is ramming a screwdriver down into there) are related to my cold. But I'm trying to treat and there's not a lot else I can do.
I saw Dave Taylor at the weekend, and whilst he is a great chap and a fantastic masseuse, he's didn't make a huge amount of difference, and that's because I leave too long between sessions. I have time and money issues (I lack both). But I'm making a headache plan because I have waged war on my head.
Or at least I thought I had, until I re-read my last post, all those months ago, and looked at the thread I had linked. I think the biggest problem is facing up to the fact that I may well have this condition for the rest of my life. And it really is difficult to do that when every single day it makes you want to blow your brains out. Honestly, no matter how happy I am with my boyfriend, my job, my life in general, everyday I wish there were a way I could blow my brains out just to get rid of this headache. I was to inject poison into my veins so the blood vessels that might be constricted just melt away. I want to poke my finger in my ear and keep poking until I get to the muscles around my head and just pull them out. Gone, away.
I have never been so close to jumping in front of a train as I was yesterday.
And it sounds melodramatic, and I know that I could be SO much worse off. But at the same time, I live with this pain every day. If I didn't have enough to deal with, like finding my own feet in the world, negotiating a career in this job-poor country and trying to carve an identity for myself, I am constantly taunted and tortured by this pain.
It is wearing me down faster than it has been before. I used to be pretty strong. I'm getting to feel pretty weak.
But when you have to sit and work all day with stabbing pains coming from both sides of your head and an ache at the bottom of skull like it's going to fall off, you do start to question the hell the point of it all is.
I am trying very hard to focus on the positives. I am starting hypnotherapy this coming Saturday, so hopefully I will be able to blog about that. What I'm aiming for (and I think he is on the same page with me about this) are some self-hypnosis techniques I can use to relax myself. I'm notoriously bad at relaxing, everybody I know knows this. The guy I am seeing is Steve Cook. He seems really lovely and keen to help. Maybe he's already worked his hypnosis skills on me but I feel I can trust this guy. He has been on the level with me about what he can and cannot do, and I am looking forward to some positive results.
I'm hoping I can find a community for Chronic headache sufferers. As soon as I do, I'll post it on here.
I've been trying to keep a headache diary for the last few weeks to help identify any triggers. I haven't done a headache diary for many years and I remembered why once I started doing this one: they are impossible to keep track of. Well, not impossible, but the only way I could record every fluctuation is if I didn't work all day and literally sat at home waiting for them in order to write them down.
From what I've noted so far, triggers include: walking, the cold, sitting still, not eating, not drinking, eating and drinking, sleeping too much, not sleeping enough.
I am all for control, ok, but there is just no way I am going to be able to control all these things that I might see as triggers.
Not eating and drinking - ok, I'll just eat or drink something. Cue trigger from eating or drinking. And I am being way more careful or what I'm eating these days.
I can't not walk. I can't avoid the cold in this country. And my job requires me to sit still at a desk. I take regular breaks, but this doesn't seem to help.
I have a cold at the moment which really hasn't helped but I can't stop that either really. I think the massive pains I'm getting in my right temple and sinuses (and weirdly, stabbing pains in my left ear that feel like someone is ramming a screwdriver down into there) are related to my cold. But I'm trying to treat and there's not a lot else I can do.
I saw Dave Taylor at the weekend, and whilst he is a great chap and a fantastic masseuse, he's didn't make a huge amount of difference, and that's because I leave too long between sessions. I have time and money issues (I lack both). But I'm making a headache plan because I have waged war on my head.
Or at least I thought I had, until I re-read my last post, all those months ago, and looked at the thread I had linked. I think the biggest problem is facing up to the fact that I may well have this condition for the rest of my life. And it really is difficult to do that when every single day it makes you want to blow your brains out. Honestly, no matter how happy I am with my boyfriend, my job, my life in general, everyday I wish there were a way I could blow my brains out just to get rid of this headache. I was to inject poison into my veins so the blood vessels that might be constricted just melt away. I want to poke my finger in my ear and keep poking until I get to the muscles around my head and just pull them out. Gone, away.
I have never been so close to jumping in front of a train as I was yesterday.
And it sounds melodramatic, and I know that I could be SO much worse off. But at the same time, I live with this pain every day. If I didn't have enough to deal with, like finding my own feet in the world, negotiating a career in this job-poor country and trying to carve an identity for myself, I am constantly taunted and tortured by this pain.
It is wearing me down faster than it has been before. I used to be pretty strong. I'm getting to feel pretty weak.
But when you have to sit and work all day with stabbing pains coming from both sides of your head and an ache at the bottom of skull like it's going to fall off, you do start to question the hell the point of it all is.
I am trying very hard to focus on the positives. I am starting hypnotherapy this coming Saturday, so hopefully I will be able to blog about that. What I'm aiming for (and I think he is on the same page with me about this) are some self-hypnosis techniques I can use to relax myself. I'm notoriously bad at relaxing, everybody I know knows this. The guy I am seeing is Steve Cook. He seems really lovely and keen to help. Maybe he's already worked his hypnosis skills on me but I feel I can trust this guy. He has been on the level with me about what he can and cannot do, and I am looking forward to some positive results.
I'm hoping I can find a community for Chronic headache sufferers. As soon as I do, I'll post it on here.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Raynor & Revelations
Raynor massage is the one therapy I am pursuing at the moment, and I thought it about time to write a new post, so it is only appropriate that I write about Raynor.
I receive Raynor from a lovely guy called Dave Taylor (for his website, click here). I've had 4 treatments from him now, and each one has been different in some way. Dave has practically magical hands, and knows just how to find my sore spots, and make them feel better. Whilst causing them a lot of pain.
Raynor massage was developed by a gentleman called Brandon Raynor, who studied various massage techniques and alternative medicines, and wanted to combine them all to completely treat the body: "It covers not just the muscles of the body but also the skeletal system and the subtle energy systems of the body."
Having had plenty of massages and experiences in Eastern medicine, I sort of understand the idea of chi, and energy blockages in the body causing tension. Raynor focuses quite seriously on a person's chi, and associates a lot of tension with emotional problems or stress. Mental well-being is as important as physical well-being, basically.
Having a Raynor massage is difficult. It's hurt, I'm not gonna lie, in fact sometimes it hurts like hell. Sometimes it hurts so much I can't understand why I'm not passing out from the pain. Raynor encourages patients to breathe properly throughout the massage, and breathing is very important to get yourself through the pain of the massage. Of course, it's not always easy to regulate your breathing (long breath in through the nose, long breath out through the mouth) and often I end up breathing more out of my mouth like you see pregnant women in labour of hospital dramas doing in order to get through the pain. And it's important to remember that it is not the masseur causing you pain. They are just trying to get out the deep-rooted tension in your body. It just happens to be happening at the end of their fingertips, palms and elbows,
Dave has managed to find some really sore spots on my body in the 4 times I've seen him, spots I didn't know existed. I know I have tension in my neck and shoulders, and I know I have tension down my spine and lower back. But I've learned from Dave about how the muscles run from shoulder to hip, how all the leg muscles are connected together around pubic bone at the bottom of the spine (look at the Hip & Pelvic Girdle section here). And in my 3rd session, Dave suddenly hit a spot in my hip that apparently held a lot of tension. It felt like he was putting as much pressure as humanly possible on it: he was basically pushing on it with the same pressure as you do when you tap your finger to the beat, i.e. no pressure at all in comparison what he could be be doing. But it hurt so much I cried and shouted. Dave, and the concept of Raynor, encourages emotional responses like that. It's best just to let it go.
As a deep tissue massage, Raynor is very effective for me. I don't know if it'll ever get rid of all my knots, it's unlikely. But in the meantime, I think it'll help relieve some of the tension. And despite putting myself through that much pain for an hour, I feel much better for it afterwards.
Having just gone on & on about how excellent Raynor is, I don't think it will cure me. That's not me being pessimistic, that's sort of just being realistic. Because I am likely to have this headache, and this pain, for the rest of my life.
I read this thread online this morning. I don't know I haven't come across it before, I have googled my condition Chronic Daily Tension Headache enough times. But it confirmed for me what I had secretly been fearing, and what I didn't want to admit to myself. It's 5 & a half years this month I've had this headache, and it's important I don't stop counting, but it's also important that I stop putting so much emphasis on the longevity of this headache, and that the longer it goes on the less likely I'll be able to be headache-free ever again. There's no cure for CDTH, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy my life, and that one day I won't find something that cures me, or can relieve me of my headache for days, or weeks, or months on end. I think what I should now focus on is getting myself into the best possible health. I need to focus on conditioning my body with Pilates and Yoga, and start to eat a lot better. I would love to start running again, but we'll see eh?
I need to learn how to manage the pain. I've just got to stop letting my headache get me down.
I've just got to let it go.
I receive Raynor from a lovely guy called Dave Taylor (for his website, click here). I've had 4 treatments from him now, and each one has been different in some way. Dave has practically magical hands, and knows just how to find my sore spots, and make them feel better. Whilst causing them a lot of pain.
Raynor massage was developed by a gentleman called Brandon Raynor, who studied various massage techniques and alternative medicines, and wanted to combine them all to completely treat the body: "It covers not just the muscles of the body but also the skeletal system and the subtle energy systems of the body."
Having had plenty of massages and experiences in Eastern medicine, I sort of understand the idea of chi, and energy blockages in the body causing tension. Raynor focuses quite seriously on a person's chi, and associates a lot of tension with emotional problems or stress. Mental well-being is as important as physical well-being, basically.
Having a Raynor massage is difficult. It's hurt, I'm not gonna lie, in fact sometimes it hurts like hell. Sometimes it hurts so much I can't understand why I'm not passing out from the pain. Raynor encourages patients to breathe properly throughout the massage, and breathing is very important to get yourself through the pain of the massage. Of course, it's not always easy to regulate your breathing (long breath in through the nose, long breath out through the mouth) and often I end up breathing more out of my mouth like you see pregnant women in labour of hospital dramas doing in order to get through the pain. And it's important to remember that it is not the masseur causing you pain. They are just trying to get out the deep-rooted tension in your body. It just happens to be happening at the end of their fingertips, palms and elbows,
Dave has managed to find some really sore spots on my body in the 4 times I've seen him, spots I didn't know existed. I know I have tension in my neck and shoulders, and I know I have tension down my spine and lower back. But I've learned from Dave about how the muscles run from shoulder to hip, how all the leg muscles are connected together around pubic bone at the bottom of the spine (look at the Hip & Pelvic Girdle section here). And in my 3rd session, Dave suddenly hit a spot in my hip that apparently held a lot of tension. It felt like he was putting as much pressure as humanly possible on it: he was basically pushing on it with the same pressure as you do when you tap your finger to the beat, i.e. no pressure at all in comparison what he could be be doing. But it hurt so much I cried and shouted. Dave, and the concept of Raynor, encourages emotional responses like that. It's best just to let it go.
As a deep tissue massage, Raynor is very effective for me. I don't know if it'll ever get rid of all my knots, it's unlikely. But in the meantime, I think it'll help relieve some of the tension. And despite putting myself through that much pain for an hour, I feel much better for it afterwards.
Having just gone on & on about how excellent Raynor is, I don't think it will cure me. That's not me being pessimistic, that's sort of just being realistic. Because I am likely to have this headache, and this pain, for the rest of my life.
I read this thread online this morning. I don't know I haven't come across it before, I have googled my condition Chronic Daily Tension Headache enough times. But it confirmed for me what I had secretly been fearing, and what I didn't want to admit to myself. It's 5 & a half years this month I've had this headache, and it's important I don't stop counting, but it's also important that I stop putting so much emphasis on the longevity of this headache, and that the longer it goes on the less likely I'll be able to be headache-free ever again. There's no cure for CDTH, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy my life, and that one day I won't find something that cures me, or can relieve me of my headache for days, or weeks, or months on end. I think what I should now focus on is getting myself into the best possible health. I need to focus on conditioning my body with Pilates and Yoga, and start to eat a lot better. I would love to start running again, but we'll see eh?
I need to learn how to manage the pain. I've just got to stop letting my headache get me down.
I've just got to let it go.
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