This is actually a true story about a lady that was suffering from migraine and how I was able to help her.
It would be around the year of 2004 when I was working in the building trade. At that time, I was doing a kitchen fitting job and there was this one particular one that still stands out in my mind even today.
So, I had been working there for this lady – who was quite chatty and friendly and she was interested in the process of how her new kitchen installation was taking place.
On the third day, I noticed that she was not her usual self and was sitting quietly on the sofa and not interacting with any conversation.
I politely asked her if she was ok and she replied that she was suffering from migraine again and needed to be quiet because this condition makes her feel a bit unwell.
She told me that it was a fairly frequent occurrence and the only thing to do is to sit still or lie down with the curtains closed. She indicated that usually, she also takes paracetomol to help her with the discomfort.
Now, as part of my Shiatsu training, our group would attend events and offer free neck and shoulder massages to the public while they were seated on a chair. These proved to be very effective for the people that offered themselves for the treatments and the feedback was always very positive.
The knowledge that I gained from this training, helped me to understand that sometimes these migraines can originate from tension in the neck and shoulders and this condition can respond positively to a short treatment working on the meridian lines.
With this in mind, I offered the lady a short treatment working around this area. Bear in mind, that I was in my working clothes which is not ideal for treatments, but I couldn’t just stand back watching her suffer when I knew that I could help. So I invited her to sit on a stool, I took my work boots off and went into the living room where she was seated.
I simply massaged around the top of her shoulders, back, around the neck and around her head. I worked on meridian lines and activated some pressure points as well. This was all done while she was sitting on a stool fully clothed. That’s the one of the benefits of Shiatsu – it is done through the clothing, so it can be carried out anywhere really.
After about fifteen minutes of this, I asked her how she was doing and she replied to me “the migraine has gone now and I am feeling much better.”
This took just fifteen minutes and I wasn’t even prepared for this – it was a spur of the moment thing to help her. This one little, short treatment prevented her from feeling unwell for the rest of the day.
Now, this may not work for everyone and I would never give a guarantee that it would, but if you are regularly suffering from migraine and it is affecting your life, then maybe you would consider some short treatments to try and help you to relieve this problem. Surely that is worth a try.