Client details in this story have been changed to protect privacy, in line with HIPAA. We’ll call her “Maren.”
Maren (as we’re calling her) had been getting migraines several times a week for almost a decade before she ever sat in my treatment room. Three, sometimes four a week. She’d tried the dark room, the cold cloth, the prescription that made her too foggy to drive or work to the best of her abilities. By the time she found us, she was looking for migraine relief only. I’m sharing part of her story today to help others find if what we do is a good fit for them as well, with her permission of course, and with her name changed to abide by HIPAA because “massage can help with migraines” is a sentence that’s been written a thousand times on a thousand different websites. It doesn’t tell you anything. What actually happened in this treatment room does.
What Maren’s Migraines Looked Like
Maren worked a stereotypical desk job right here in Colorado Springs, hours of screen time, shoulders creeping up toward her ears by 2pm most days, and having to live and work off her phone didn’t help matters either. Her migraines almost always started the same way after she noticed her aura: a blur behind her eyes, tightness at the base of her skull, then pressure continuing to accumulate behind one of her eyes. She’d already ruled out most food triggers with her doctor. What she hadn’t looked closely at was the tension sitting in her neck, jaw, and upper back, tension that had been quietly building for years before it ever showed up as a headache, let alone a migraine.
This is a pattern I see often, and it’s worth naming plainly: not every migraine starts in the head. A lot of them start in the muscles that hold your head up all day. While each case is different and Id need to work with you to know that, we can at least get a head start on what we can do to find relief.
What We Actually Did Differently
During Maren’s consultation, she had shared she’s been receiving massages for many years now. Which she was used to work on the back and face causing referral pain patterns, she was getting the same massage every single time she went in for treatment regardless of what had changed in session.
Her first few sessions focused specifically on the suboccipital muscles at the base of her skull, her upper trapezius, and, something people don’t expect her jaw. Maren hadn’t received work inside her mouth before. Migraine and tension headache patterns overlap more than most people realize, and clenching shows up in places you wouldn’t think to look.
We also talked about her workday. Not as an afterthought, but as part of the plan. A massage that undoes tension on Tuesday and gets rebuilt by Thursday afternoon at a desk isn’t solving the actual problem. So part of what changed for Maren wasn’t just what happened on the table, it was what she did with her neck and shoulders between sessions.
So What Actually Changed Specifically?
Within about 6-weeks of consistent biweekly sessions, Maren’s migraine frequency dropped from three-to-four a week to about one every ten days. Not gone, I want to be honest about that, because “cured,” but massage isn’t a substitute for medical care, exercises, or any of the work related tools she began to implement in her work life after we started working together. But manageable in a way it hadn’t been in years. She described getting through a full workday without reaching for medication as something that used to feel impossible. That’s the actual result. Not a promise, not a guarantee, one client’s real, specific outcome.
Why I’m Telling You This Instead of Just Listing Migraine “Benefits”
Anyone can write that massage reduces stress and muscle tension. What they can’t write is what actually happens in a Colorado Springs treatment room with a real patient whose migraines had a real, traceable pattern. If your migraines feel connected to your neck, jaw, or the hours you spend at a screen, that’s worth a conversation, not a generic checklist you’d get anywhere.
If you’re dealing with a similar pattern, you can read more about how we approach headaches and migraines as a service, or take a look at our post on tension headache trigger points for more on where this tension tends to hide. If jaw tension sounds familiar, why your jaw might be the cause of your migraines digs into that connection even further and may be worth reading about as well.
For general background on migraine patterns and triggers, the American Migraine Foundation’s guide to common triggers is a solid outside resource! Just remember, your own pattern is worth discussing with your doctor.
Ready to see if this could work for you? Book an appointment or read about what to expect at your first visit.
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