Knot advice - please help!

[JodieB0986]

Hi Guys

I am taking the advice of a kind forum member last week, MindKnot, (ironically the source of my problem this time lol) and asking for support on here rather than the dreaded google. I am not asking for a diagnostics but just wondered if anyone had suffered with the following to put my mind at rest:

Since I have had the worst bout of my anxiety over 2 months ago up until now, I have the most terrible tightness in my upper back, shoulders and more prominently the neck. My friend who is a masseuse had a look weekend and said on a scale of 1 to 10, I was approx. a 9 on the tense scale!! She said also said each side of my neck, near the shoulder I had massive knots and smaller knots in the neck and it would take a good few deep tissue massages to get out.

My question is, does anyone know if this can radiate into the head and cause tension headaches as I find that I have been getting really tight throbbing pains in my temple area and the base of the skull and it seems to radiate from my neck, through my jaw and upwards. It's obviously been a lot more noticeable since I have been through the worst Anxiety period of my life!

I am going to the Doctor's tonight to see if he can prescribe me anything for this tension - like to relax it as it's causing me extreme distress at times and I have noticed it's a lot worse after a day on the work computer - have approx. 7 hours a day at the computer and my neck now has a bulge on it at the back -forward head posture! I just don't want him to be like 'It's just Anxiety'

So just wondering if anyone has gone through this and could recommend anything to ease it? A few family members of mine said I need to 'RELAX' but as you guys on here will know, telling someone with Anxiety to relax is like telling a Dog not to beg for food - don't matter how many times they hear it, they will do it anyway lol

[MyNameIsTerry]

I don't know about the knots issue but neck pain does cause head pain. I've had pain with a nerve in my neck before and it travelled all up the right side of my face into the temple.

My dad also has a problem with a nerve in his neck and he suffers the same all up one side.

I've also had issues with grinding in my sleep and this did the same thing to me by sending pain/aches all the way up the right side to the temple. It made sense to me because if you clench your jaw you feel the muscles in your temple tense as well.

So, its very likely its a muscular tension issue which you already seem to know. In my dad's case, he was offered a low dosage of an antidepressant for his as some of them can be used for various neuropathic pain issues, like the on I'm on. He chose not to since he didn't want to end up with side effects and needing them fulltime.

Have you tried Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)? This is aimed at relieving tension and therapists give this out to their patients to use daily until tension subsides.

Another thing to consider is meditation. It is proven to reduce inflamation in the body. Look for The Relaxation Response, which has the instructions free on the website of the doctor who created it.

[JodieB0986]

Thanks for this! It's also weird since I visited this Osteopath on about 3 occasions and done all her clicking and that, my neck seems to have got more stiff. I went with mild muscle tension to come out days later with constant stiffness! When I rub my neck and shoulders, it is so tense and I can feel the knots so maybe because of these knots they have trapped nerves then... The Doctor hopefully should fill me in more!

Maybe I should try this meditation... Thanks a lot for your reply!

[MyNameIsTerry]

Its a possibility I guess, your GP will be able to examine and confirm that. It could just be muscular though like when you get inflamed knots in muscles.

My mum had problems with her lower back due to statins (which only came out later when they found out statins could be worse for some people, like my mum) and her GP sent her to a physio who performed deep muscle massage and her back was far worse for days and she never went back. From what I recall, due to the statins, massage was a bad idea as it would make it worse. So, perhaps in your case, the massage was ytoo intense so you are experiencing more muscle soreness?

[boogal]

Take a look at ‘Trigger Points’. I’ve worked some minor miracles by self-treatment and having therapist treatment of these recently. The shoulders, head and neck areas in particular are often affected by muscle knots, as they were once called, but are now called Trigger Points.

If you sit at a desk all day or are often hunched over a laptop you will almost certainly have related problems. I used to be Health and Safety Officer in a government department and was always appalled at how little meaningful attention is paid to desk posture. I reckon that over the next ten years it’s going to become the big health issue that smoking has been more recently.

Even active, athletic persons get muscle knots, often caused or aggravated by over or excessive use. It’s estimated that over half of all surgical procedures could be avoided if trigger points were treated and that many drug treatments would be unnecessary if these knots were elimated.

[swgrl09]

I have bad knots in the same exact places and get head pain, ear pain, headaches, even arm/shoulder/hand pain sometimes if they are bad. Dr can prob give you a muscle relaxer, but it's only temporary relief for me. I get massages monthly if I can afford it and have been to a chiropractor.

[Mindknot]

Where do you think I got my name from? :roflmao:
Tension in your neck can cause all sorts of radiating pain, for me, seeing an osteopath has worked where massage didn't, but then a lot of the strain on my neck was coming from other issues - i.e. some of the muscles down my back were not doing what they should, as best as they should, due to bad posture (I'm learning to fix that at the mo). Problem is worrying about the tension/pain will lead you to more anxiety and tenser muscles and the cycle goes on.

Massage directly on that area might be too painful at the moment if it's really tense. You could try non-direct therapies like reflexology, or actually I found regular exercise and hot baths (even for a short period) were quite effective. Once things are a bit less tense, massage/osteopathy might be more pleasant & effective. I've also lately spent a lot of my time on the floor, knees up, back flat as it seemed to be most effective for relaxing my back. At one point my muscles were so tense I found it hard to lie flat, so the traditional yoga one (savasana) was no good! If at-work posture is a problem, I'd recommend getting up for a walk occasionally too, even if just at lunch time for half an hour or so, or find somewhere quiet where you can have a quick lie down in that relaxation posture for 5 mins or so when it gets bad. Human's aren't really made to sit for a long time, so best thing is to get moving more.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Take a look at ‘Trigger Points’. I’ve worked some minor miracles by self-treatment and having therapist treatment of these recently. The shoulders, head and neck areas in particular are often affected by muscle knots, as they were once called, but are now called Trigger Points.

If you sit at a desk all day or are often hunched over a laptop you will almost certainly have related problems. I used to be Health and Safety Officer in a government department and was always appalled at how little meaningful attention is paid to desk posture. I reckon that over the next ten years it’s going to become the big health issue that smoking has been more recently.

Even active, athletic persons get muscle knots, often caused or aggravated by over or excessive use. It’s estimated that over half of all surgical procedures could be avoided if trigger points were treated and that many drug treatments would be unnecessary if these knots were elimated.

Yeah, I second this. I've worked in offices most of my life and you want to see the twenty something smokers out of breath walking up the stairs which is more about sitting around all day. I agree about the sitting down jobs but I think they will also be contributing to the heart disease, bloooed pressure, diabetes and mental health problems more than most groups.

I've picked up a book on trigger points and it makes a lot of sense to me. I have been suffering from sciatica for about 6 months everyday now and it makes sense to work on it from this angle as the stretching is limited and I don't want my doc throwing more pills at me just to shout "Next" quickly!

Trigger point work is also extremely easy to do on your own. From an equipment point of view, ignoring the Thera cane, you can do it with access to a wall and tennis ball or otherwise with your own hands/fingers/thumbs.

I would also say think about inflamation in general. Inflamation is the bodies answer to various forms of stress and thats why we get all these tension & muscular type issues. So, perhaps some natural supplements can help us with this?