Tips for using the Range with a Headache

Christine Koth, holistic physical therapist and inventor of the NUCKLE, shares her top tips for using the NUCKLE with a headache. Christine has personally experienced headaches and migraines for her entire life, and using the NUCKLE on her own neck muscles has helped her out significantly. Pay close attention as she shares exactly what has helped her out with you in this video.

Using the NUCKLE for Headaches:

When you have headaches and you're using the NUCKLE, you're trying to find the tighter spots (muscle tension) in your neck that are responsible for causing the headaches to begin with. There are lots of tiny muscles in your neck and at the base of your skull (called the suboccipitals) that may be tight and contributing to your headaches.

The NUCKLE is designed to be really precise at pinpointing each and every one of these muscles so that you can find the one that's responsible for your headaches in your situation. Once you find that muscle, and using whichever of the 3 different tips of the NUCKLE that you choose, make sure that you're holding that pressure on the muscle for a prolonged period of time (at least 30 to 90 seconds). No rubbing or massaging, simply hold the pressure and focus on relaxed breathing as you stay still.

When you first put pressure on the muscle, the expectation is that it's going to increase in intensity. After those first 30 seconds, it should start to get better and the discomfort fades away over time. This is the tension starting to release. Even though you might feel like it’s okay to come off the NUCKLE, you want to continue holding that pressure as you approach 60 and 90 seconds (and even longer if you’d like). If it helps, set a timer for yourself, close your eyes, and patiently breathe.

If you come off of the pressure being applied into these muscles too soon, then there’s a chance that the muscle didn’t fully release and it could even trigger a headache to happen (which we don’t want). The same can be said about the temptation to use the NUCKLE to rub around and massage your neck. Doing so has the potential for activating a trigger point that causes a headache.

If you experience a headache after using the NUCKLE, that’s okay. Then you know you’re beginning to address the root cause of the issue. Let the headache calm down, and then be sure to use consistent and prolonged pressure to those tight spots the next time you use the NUCKLE. Set yourself up with a consistent routine (even when your neck isn’t feeling tight) to continue to help those muscles to relax.

For those of you that have migraines, you want to make sure that you're using something to calm down your blood supply to that area. This is because migraines have a vascular component, which means that it involves increasing circulation in your brain as well as other parts of your muscles. When you do a trigger point release with a tool like this, you're actually increasing circulation in that muscle, which therefore can create an increase in circulation and trigger a migraine. So, after using the NUCKLE if you use ice on that area, it will help reduce the amount that your blood vessels expand following the release and can decrease the likelihood of triggering a headache.

One of the things that's really important to know about using the NUCKLE for headaches, in particular, is that this is getting at the source of the problem. If you use the NUCKLE and it triggers a headache for you, or it's producing a feeling that's similar to the headaches that you experience, that's precisely the evidence that you need to know that these muscles are responsible for what you're experiencing with your chronic headaches. So it's not something to shy away from, as much as you hate having a headache. Using these tools and these tips to help you through that process, knowing that you've actually come across the actual source of your problem will help you to get to a point where you can actually be free of those headaches.