According to musculoskeletal pain specialists, tension headaches are usually due to small areas of hyperirritability that develop in the muscles, referred to as trigger points. Trigger points refer pain; that is, they can cause pain to travel to various areas of the body. Trigger points in the shoulder can send pain down your arm while trigger points at the top of your neck can send pain into an eye.
The reason they are called trigger points lies in the fact that they can remain dormant in your muscles for a long time without causing pain until fatigue, stress, poor posture, repetitive movements or other conditions ‘trigger’ them to become active.
Massage therapy has proven to be an effective way of treating trigger points for long-term headache relief. In a study published in the American Journal of Public Health researchers Christopher Quinn, DC, Clint Chandler, BS, and Albert Moraska, PhD found that chronic headache sufferers had dramatic relief after ten massages that specifically focused only on treatment of trigger points. Patients who were experiencing headaches 5-7 times a week began to see the frequency of their headaches decrease to 2- 3 times a week. The duration of the patients' headaches, which had averaged 8 hours before massages were administered, fell to 4 hours. And while one patient experienced an increase in headache intensity in the period after massages were given, the other participants in the study saw the intensity of their headaches decrease, some nearly 50 percent. Please note that headaches can sometimes be symptomatic of a more serious condition. Those over the age of 35 who experience severe headaches for the first time should consult with their doctors.
