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HELP! Feeling brain-damaged from neck massage

RhythmSpring

RhythmSpring

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 19, 2008
Messages
2,255
So I asked this girl to give me a massage. She's very good, but she applies a *lot* of pressure and moves swiftly. I'm a very skinny guy (112lb @ 5ft 10) I don't have a lot "padding" on me. My back and shoulders are sore but feel great.

But when she got to my neck, she was quite hard. She moved up and down the sides of the back of my neck, which kind of hurt but also felt good, so I didn't say anything. Then she started massaging the area where the back of the neck meets the base of the skull, which hurt a LOT. There was a point when she was in there that I noticed that I lost consciousness for a brief second.

After that moment, I felt dull. Not like myself. Normally I feel sharp, like with a piercing gaze and a piercing awareness of things around me. Now, I feel kind of brain-dead. I keep internally expecting certain kinds of emotions and thoughts that normally come up, but they just aren't. It's very scary. I feel like I'm not actually seeing the things that I'm looking at, if that makes sense. Subjectively I feel that "inner movement" has been slowed.

I went to bed, hoping that I just needed sleep and perhaps the weed (applied topically through coconut oil at 7pm) to wear off. I woke up this morning and the back of the neck still hurts, and I still feel the same amount of dull. The focus that I've had for a long time just isn't there.

WTF happened??? This is really scary!!! I'm going to see a doctor about this, and talk to her about this, but in the meantime I need someone who knows a little bit of neck anatomy to chime in...

I really don't feel right.
 
FUCK. Just dug up this:

"Deep Neck Massage on Both Sides of the Spine Another thing I see a lot of, which has the potential to actually kill/cause serious brain damage to a healthy person is deep massage right under the base of the skull on both sides of the cervical spine (neck bones). The two main arteries that feed the brain run through here. So that person you think you just put to sleep by giving a really good deep massage too may in fact be blacked out and sustaining brain damage. No I am not exaggerating. As my sensei is fond of saying "the brain likes its blood", in fact in Ju-jitsu we would call this a blood choke. This is especially the case if you have you have a good one handed grip, and aren't completely leaving off the pressure when you kneed. Or if the person is lying on there back and you are supporting their head below the base of the skull, deep in the top muscles and are working other areas with your opposite hand. Incidentally if you do have a person on their back and are doing a deep neck massage this is a good thing but just hold the back of the skull with one hand and work one side with your other hand. A towel can be useful at this point to keep greasy hands out of your friend's hair too. But I digress." - http://everything2.com/title/massage

Actually,
File:Maxillary_artery.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maxillary_artery.PNG

Where she was massaging was *behind* the ear, so I don't think it was an artery (unless someone else knows something I'm not aware of).

But I definitely blacked out for a second, and I definitely feel duller, and my face and eyes look different. I still need to figure out what happened.
 
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fuck man,I would slap that bitch in terror.... cutting blood suply to brain = not cool
 
DOB- Yeah, I'ma talk to her.

HCandKROD- Yes. He tested my motor skills, reflexes, and sensation, and according to that nothing's wrong. So......
 
No reason to panic! Serious adverse effects from massage are extremely rare. I do not find that post by a random person on everything2.com very credible and it over-exaggerates the risks. A neck massage is highly unlikely to kill you or give you brain damage. Massage can aggravate existing problems or cause new injuries - usually minor, compress nerves, or mildly stress the body.

A very unusual case report of brain artery damage (extracranial internal cartoid artery dissection) was reported in 2004 by the Southern Medical Journal after a woman had a stroke while using a vibrating massage tool on her neck. But there is no reason to jump to the conclusion that a stroke or arterial damage is the cause of feeling dull and weird after a massage or of briefly losing consciousness during massage. Both of those symptoms are pretty common with massage.

People with nervous system issues or psychological issues can have minor and major setbacks in response to excessively deep, painful or "unusual" feeling massage.

Some people have also suggested that the general malaise some people get after a particularly intense massage might possibly be caused (at least in part) by waste metabolites and by-products of tissue damage being released and that being hard on the body to detoxify.

Here's some info on losing consciousness during massage:

The medical term for fainting is "syncope" and is defined as a sudden, brief loss of consciousness. "Near- syncope" is the experience of symptoms leading up to a loss of consciousness. There are literally hundreds of possible causes of syncope, most of which fall into the "vasovagal" category. That is to say, when the vasovagal nerve reflex is invoked, the smooth muscles in the blood vessels relax, dilating them, and cause a sudden drop in blood pressure.

If the [head is above the heart] when this happens, then blood, and thus oxygen, no longer reach the brain in sufficient quantities to maintain consciousness and the individual passes out.
The three most important things to know about syncope are:
- Most episodes are transient; that is, they happen once and never again.
- Only rarely is someone who has fainted in a life-threatening situation.
- Someone who faints revives spontaneously.

So what stimulates the vasovagal reflex during a massage? Since the exact cause in most syncope episodes is never discovered, this can be a complicated mystery.

We at the TouchPro Institute began by closely questioning clients who had experienced syncope, as well as the practitioners who worked on them. Over the course of a few years we noticed some patterns.

By far, perhaps 80% of the time, when we questioned clients who had fainted, we found they had not eaten recently, or missed a meal entirely. It seemed that low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) was the most common contributing factor. We also learned that, not surprisingly, people with a history of fainting, typically caused by a low blood pressure condition or a slow heart rate, were also more susceptible. Much less frequently, if the client is just getting over, or coming down with, a common illness (flu or a cold) or if the client is on certain medications such as diuretics, beta blockers, calcium blockers, or other CNS depressants which might slow the heart rate, then fainting symptoms are more likely to occur. Syncope and near-syncope have also been seen in relationship to migraines, epileptic seizures, hyperventilation (extremely nervous clients), alcohol intoxication and cardiac arrhythmia.

We also asked practitioners where on the client's body they had been working when the client felt faint. We noticed that it was often when they were working on the inside of clients' lower arms or on their necks. It is possible that these areas of the body are more likely to stimulate the vasovagal reflex in combination with the primary causes noted above. However, syncope could happen at any time during a massage.
Click to expand...
Published in Massage & Bodywork magazine - view article.

And FWIW I have personally lost consciousness during massage before and was totally fine. It seems extreme to suggest "slapping that bitch", even if she actually did injure the OP in some way it clearly was not intentional and it is also the responsibility of the person being massaged to tell the person performing the massage if it is too deep or fast IMO. OP - Glad you saw a doctor to be on the safe side. Are you feeling any better now?
 
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You're probably just freaking out. About the pain... well, it might be 'normal', I don't know your medical history and the health of your spine and whatever.

The arteries that feed the brain the post was referring to are not the maxillaries, but the carotids (and internal carotids and not external, at that). In your pic you can see a blue thing (jugular vein) and next to it a bifurcation of a big artery (carotid). The internal carotid (left branch) feeds the brain. Google/wiki 'blood choke' to see where the pressure needs to be applied, and I highly doubt it's your case. But blood chokes are even used in some sports and by some law enforcement agencies, and if executed properly do not cause brain damage...
It is strange that you blacked out (are you sure, btw?), but I'll maybe be able to ask some neurologist about that (I know a few, just don't see them every day). If you can, try to forget about this stuff, anxiety can definitively alter your internal states and make you less sharp... If to feel reassured you have to see a neurologist, see it.
 
Josair said:
You're probably just freaking out. About the pain... well, it might be 'normal', I don't know your medical history and the health of your spine and whatever.

The arteries that feed the brain the post was referring to are not the maxillaries, but the carotids (and internal carotids and not external, at that). In your pic you can see a blue thing (jugular vein) and next to it a bifurcation of a big artery (carotid). The internal carotid (left branch) feeds the brain. Google/wiki 'blood choke' to see where the pressure needs to be applied, and I highly doubt it's your case. But blood chokes are even used in some sports and by some law enforcement agencies, and if executed properly do not cause brain damage...
It is strange that you blacked out (are you sure, btw?), but I'll maybe be able to ask some neurologist about that (I know a few, just don't see them every day). If you can, try to forget about this stuff, anxiety can definitively alter your internal states and make you less sharp... If to feel reassured you have to see a neurologist, see it.
Click to expand...

^Well said :)
 
I would be totally freaking out.

I only clicked into this thread because the title grabbed me by the throat. I will never go to a chiropractor/osteopath again. Having my neck cracked was the most frightening thing I've done (this side of having my first baby.)

I won't let anybody massage my neck. I literally get so nervous that I have jumped off a massage table as soon as the massage therapist touched my neck.

Rhythm, please let us know how you are doing. Maybe time will heal your condition. I hope you feel better soon.
 
Swimmingdancer said:
The medical term for fainting is "syncope" and is defined as a sudden, brief loss of consciousness. "Near- syncope" is the experience of symptoms leading up to a loss of consciousness. There are literally hundreds of possible causes of syncope, most of which fall into the "vasovagal" category. That is to say, when the vasovagal nerve reflex is invoked, the smooth muscles in the blood vessels relax, dilating them, and cause a sudden drop in blood pressure.

If the [head is above the heart] when this happens, then blood, and thus oxygen, no longer reach the brain in sufficient quantities to maintain consciousness and the individual passes out.
The three most important things to know about syncope are:
- Most episodes are transient; that is, they happen once and never again.
- Only rarely is someone who has fainted in a life-threatening situation.
- Someone who faints revives spontaneously.

So what stimulates the vasovagal reflex during a massage? Since the exact cause in most syncope episodes is never discovered, this can be a complicated mystery.

We at the TouchPro Institute began by closely questioning clients who had experienced syncope, as well as the practitioners who worked on them. Over the course of a few years we noticed some patterns.

By far, perhaps 80% of the time, when we questioned clients who had fainted, we found they had not eaten recently, or missed a meal entirely. It seemed that low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) was the most common contributing factor. We also learned that, not surprisingly, people with a history of fainting, typically caused by a low blood pressure condition or a slow heart rate, were also more susceptible. Much less frequently, if the client is just getting over, or coming down with, a common illness (flu or a cold) or if the client is on certain medications such as diuretics, beta blockers, calcium blockers, or other CNS depressants which might slow the heart rate, then fainting symptoms are more likely to occur. Syncope and near-syncope have also been seen in relationship to migraines, epileptic seizures, hyperventilation (extremely nervous clients), alcohol intoxication and cardiac arrhythmia.

We also asked practitioners where on the client's body they had been working when the client felt faint. We noticed that it was often when they were working on the inside of clients' lower arms or on their necks. It is possible that these areas of the body are more likely to stimulate the vasovagal reflex in combination with the primary causes noted above. However, syncope could happen at any time during a massage.
Click to expand...

What you say would comfort me, except:
a) I have never ever passed out or lost consciousness in any way except for sleeping
b) I've had more intense massages before, sitting upright, and I have never experienced this dullness... it's always the opposite.
c) I was otherwise feeling well, had eaten and slept sufficiently
d) my pain threshold is extremely high--though it was painful, I've experienced much greater pain and not passed out.
 
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ugly said:
Rhythm, please let us know how you are doing. Maybe time will heal your condition. I hope you feel better soon.
Click to expand...

I am beginning to fully realize how fragile my neck is, especially mine. I am much more cautious about it now. I intuitively *was* quite protective of my neck when I was little, but then I got macho and got over that. Now, I'm back to being protective.

I'm doing okay. I still feel like my awareness has been lessened and diffuse, but I'm finding the silver lining to that--I'm less self-aware/self-conscious, less reactive, and less intellectually ambitious, which is often stressful. I feel like if blood flow to my brain was lessened, it decided what the most important parts were to nourish. Who knows.

I also feel like a piece of my ego has been ripped away. This piece held illusions of happiness as well as feelings/desires of superiority (which always come with feelings of inferiority).

Today I find myself emotionally and mentally detached and passive, which has given space for feelings of love, belonging, peace, and a quieter mind. I've been able to contextualize and take advantage of this, what first felt like a downright injury. I guess I'm good at doing that from the years of struggling with severe rheumatoid arthritis.

Obviously it is too soon to tell if any of this is permanent. I do have a strong belief in the body's power to heal itself. And I do recognize my ability to psyche myself out. However, even when I am able to let go of the fear, there is a definite difference in the way I am now. I'm more out of it, for sure, but somehow, I feel... better? Life is crazy. I will update this thread as this develops.
 
I have a strong feeling you will be ok <3
Sending you good vibes.

I'm glad you recognize how powerful the mind is and how easy it can be to assume the worst. Maybe your nervous system is just a bit shook up, weird stuff can happen to those of us with chronic pain.

ugly - chiropracty and osteopathic manipulation are very different from massage :)
 
Though this thread is rather old and the issue is largely resolved I still would like to add that though the OP experienced a blackout the idea that this could induce permanent brain damage is a little far fetched. I observed a rather neurotic man working himself into a psychosomatic panic. The addition of quantative "proof" wouldn't have helped particularly.

The nocebo effect exerts an equal and opposite reaction to the placebo effect.
 
RhythmSpring - I just found your post/thread from 2013 about your neck massage injury. [I have recently experienced something similar myself].

Did you visit a Doctor / Neurologist after all? If so, can I ask what they discovered and said?

Also, may I ask how you are doing now (I sincerely hope that you are better)?

Do you still suffer with any of the symptoms brought on by your neck massage injury, or would you say you are completely back to normal now? (If you are back to normal, how long did it take for the symptoms to alleviate)?

Thanks RhythmSpring - it would be great to find out how you're doing now and what you discovered.

PaulUKGuy
 
PaulUKGuy said:
RhythmSpring - I just found your post/thread from 2013 about your neck massage injury. [I have recently experienced something similar myself].

Did you visit a Doctor / Neurologist after all? If so, can I ask what they discovered and said?

Also, may I ask how you are doing now (I sincerely hope that you are better)?

Do you still suffer with any of the symptoms brought on by your neck massage injury, or would you say you are completely back to normal now? (If you are back to normal, how long did it take for the symptoms to alleviate)?

Thanks RhythmSpring - it would be great to find out how you're doing now and what you discovered.

PaulUKGuy
Click to expand...

Hi PaulUKGuy,
Yes, I saw a doctor and nothing was wrong with me as far as he could tell. I believe I am back to "normal" from this experience.

When I think back to the time around when this happened, I was forcing my body waaay out of whack, and *that* was the problem, not the massage. I was:
Eating almost no carbs
Taking diluted food grade hydrogen peroxide (look it up, it's a non-toxic health practice, but it sure does put your body out of whack, as I found out...)
sexual abstinence for about a year (yes, a year with no sexual release of any kind)

Something was bound to go wonky.
 
^ do you wonder why your body was "out of whack" if you drank, albeit dilute, hydrogen peroxide? One of the biggest problems/struggles the body faces every day is oxidative stress, and the main culprits are among others... you guessed it, superoxide and peroxide. Go figure.
 
^ Yeah, and products with names like "Monoatomic Oxygen Colon Cleanser" have even been patented, as a quick google search reveals.

Almost as crazy as using elemental mercury intravenously as an aphrodisiac...
 
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