What no pain feels like

October 2016

For two weeks in October I hung out at Myoworx in Guelph, Ontario for a big battery of physiotherapy. Paige Decker wrote a great explanation of the theory behind Terry Moore's concussion treatment. Basically, the whiplash followed by bedrest and avoiding normal head movement tightens up your neck, trap, and shoulder muscles. The muscle spasms restrict blood flow to the brain and also pinch nerves that trigger symptoms.

When I came to Canada, the headache and nausea lived at a 4. I could only rotate my head 30 degrees in either direction and towards the end of that range I would feel pain on the bridge of my nose. My grip strength resembled more a frail 70-year-old than an amateur rock climber. At this point I had gotten used to the pain and nausea, though it left me constantly fatigued. Most intrusively, though, I couldn't hold my attention on a difficult task for more than 10 minutes. 

In the first week, though a series of stim, stretching, and manual manipulation exercises, we changed the headache's quality from a rigid circle to more of a diffuse cloud of pain. We were also able to eliminate the pain from the left side of my forehead. 

Over the weekend I noticed some symptom alleviation. My convergence insufficiency decreased and attention improved enough to let me read for longer and with less effort. 

On Monday and Tuesday of the second week, the real magic happened. At first, I had a hard time doing the 'wave-y' motion required in many of the Myoworx stretching and strengthening techniques. My neck had spent so much time in rigid positions that I couldn't even conceive of what that movement meant. Watching more demonstrations and finally conceptualizing of it like a limbo move unlocked the motion for me. 

Then through a series of stretches on the referral areas (generally a parallel slice behind where the pain is) we pushed the headache further and further to the right. I burst out laughing when we moved it to my temple. For the first time in nearly a year, my forehead didn't hurt. Subsequent stretches even gave me five seconds of complete head pain relief.

Even something so unequivocally bad as head pain, when it's with you for so long, becomes familiar and almost comforting. For a whole year if I ever thought about how my head was doing (or if someone asked me how I was feeling) immediately I would notice my headache's level. It reminded me that I was ill, giving solace to a type-A personality that it was right to be on medical leave and having lazy days even with Donald Trump running for President. I'd imagine it would be similar to people glancing at their tattoos to remind themselves of something.

Then I thought about my doctors, and how many neurologists and physical therapists touched my neck and didn't notice anything particularly wrong. Perhaps in the first few months, my neck wasn't a big issue, and only after bed rest in early June did it lock up and begin to exacerbate symptoms. It's very frustrating to have spent months thinking I had these big psychological problems ('affective disorder' was my favorite bs diagnosis) only to it turn out to be something so mechanical as muscle spasms in my neck.

I still think there was tremendous value in the cardio, hrv breathing work, meditation, and sumatriptan, particularly in addressing mental health. But by attacking both the pain and the attention deficits (I was able to write this post in just one sitting), Myoworx has really worked wonders. This is a truly remarkable treatment and one which I wish I would've discovered sooner.