I suffered gladly from tension headaches for many years. Why gladly? Because I was grateful they weren’t migraines. My headaches, by comparison, were pretty mild, and I always assumed they were the price I had to pay for being a writer — a kind of “background noise” to my life.
As I noted in a previous post, I write all day long in my role as a marketing consultant and, after work, I spend a substantial percentage of my time researching and writing books and book proposals; literary essays; and art, film, and book reviews (most of which are collected here.)
All of this requires a great deal of reading and sitting in front of a computer. This, of course, was at the root of my problems — or so I assumed.
But recently, my headaches had been getting worse.
This despite years of consultations and treatments with a physician, physical therapist, craniosacral therapist, chiropractor, dentist, acupuncturist, two optometrists, and many, many massage therapists.
I’d adjusted my computer display, raised the level of the monitor, lowererd the level of the monitor, changed my glasses, changed the lighting, raised my chair, lowered my chair, bought firmer pillows, bought softer pillows, did stretches, went for walks, got massages, exercised.
I spent a good part of every evening kneading my shoulder and the base of my neck, and, especially, my left temple, where the pain and muscle-knotting was the worst.
I sometimes wore heat wraps during the day, and often used ice packs at night.
I also cycled through various combinations of Tylenol, Excedrin, Advil, Aleve, aspirin, Xanax, muscle relaxants and more. The only drug that ever seemed to work was Excedrin Extra Strength, but the caffeine in it made it feel like I was jumping out of my skin.
The odd thing about my headaches was that they were at their worst in the early morning hours, as I was gradually arising from sleep (sometimes, they’d awaken me at 4:30 in the morning, but never any earlier than that.) And as bad as they were, they often would disappear immediately upon awakening, or as soon as I’d stepped into the shower, only to gradually creep up on me again in the late afternoon or early evening.
I knew there was some significance to this, but never could quite understand what it was — nor could any of my doctors. Instead, it took an outre alternative medical practitioner who calls himself an “energy worker” to finally diagnose my condition, after all these years.
After our first consultation, recounted in my previous post, he’d told me that he had a vision of my being shot in the base of my neck with an arrow in a previous life. I don’t believe in that kind of nonsense, but the odd thing was, during the consultation, I had experienced (but had not mentioned to him) the distinct mental image of a wooden dowel being extracted from the base of my neck.
Coincidence? Most likely. But regardless, the next morning, I awakened without a headache for the first time in a long time.
We’ve subsequently had several telephone consultations and, yes, energy workers can do whatever it is they do over the phone as well as in person. In our first phone chat, in any event, he got down to business. No more nonsense about arrows and past lives.
Instead, he said, very simply, “you’re clenching your jaw.”
I said, “yeah, maybe, but that can’t really be the problem because I’ve checked with my dentist and there’s no wear on my teeth.”
“No, I didn’t say you were grinding your teeth. I said you were clenching your jaw. That’s something that no dentist would ever be in a position to know.”
“Well, my teeth do feel misaligned in the mornings, but a couple of different doctors and massage therapists have told me that this was the result of the muscle tension in my neck and shoulders and head, not the cause of it. Besides, the pain is in my temple, not my jaw.”
“I think they’re wrong,” he said. ”I think the jaw clenching is the cause of all of your problems. And don’t forget that the muscle in your temple controls your jaw. Put your thumb on your temple and bite down. Feel it bunch up?”
From that moment forward, I began to focus on my jaw, and the thing is, he was right. Every time I sit at the computer and write, I realized, I “work” my jaw. Sometimes I clench it and sometimes, when I’m really concentrating, I find myself jutting my chin out like some pugnacious bantamweight boxer.
I’d do the same thing in the early morning hours, as I arise from sleep and begin, somewhere below the level of consciousness, to worry about the day ahead, and all its challenges. I know this now because, in the past few weeks, I’ve started to make a special effort to awaken myself the moment I feel the pain begin to gather in my left temple, and to focus on what I’m doing with my jaw at the time.
What I’m doing is clenching my teeth together hard enough to snap an electrical cable.
And why would my headache begin to disappear as soon as I awakened? Because that’s when I began to eat and talk — in other words, to loosen up my jaw.
After this realization, which took me years to arrive at (because the clenching had been so much a part of my life that I thought it about and noticed it no more than I did my breathing) things gradually began to change. I learned about a few simple exercises that I now do every day — moving my jaw gently as if I were chewing a piece of imaginary gum; pressing my forefinger into my jaw muscle as I slowly opened my mouth; and pressing my jaw downwards against my thumb. I also focused on keeping my jaw slack by being careful to keep my teeth apart at all times when I’m not eating.
Utlimately, what I’ve learned, as my headaches gradually become less frequent, is that tension headaches don’t have to be an occupational hazard, and that I can write and read as much as I want without having to have any pain at all in “exchange.”
(Incidentally, whether or not my condition could be technically described as “TMJ,” or temporomandibular joint disorder, is of little interest to me. All that matters is results.)
I have no explanation for how the energy worker was able to diagnose my condition over the telephone when doctors have been unable to do so when seated across from me. Nor do I fully understand the long-distance “energy balancing” work he does, though I feel distinctly better and refreshed after one of our phone sessions.
But I do, at least, have some advice for others who suffer from tension headaches: Check what you’re doing with your jaw.
Let’s assume that 1,000 people suffering from chronic headaches read this post. Maybe the vast majority have a vascular problem, or eyestrain, or muscle cramps from bad posture.
Maybe only 50 out of the total have headaches because they’re clenching their jaws.
But that’s 50 people who can start to feel better tomorrow.
Two final notes: After my first consultation with the energy worker, I was so amused at the notion that I had supposedly been shot through the neck with an arrow in my previous life that I pictured myself as a grizzled old prospector or muleskinner who had been ambushed by Indians, and gave this character the comical name of Cletus. Hence, the jocular title of my earlier post, “My name is Cletus and I have an arrow in my neck.”
But subsequently, I’ve learned a bit more about blogging, including the fact that Google searchers are more likely to come across your post if you title it with something sensible instead of silly. Thus, in the interests of helping others with the same problem, I’ve set aside my smart-ass sensibilities for a moment.
But the odd thing is, I’d named myself “Cletus” at least a month before I, and the energy worker, had come to the conclusion that the problem was in my jaw. Once I did realize this, it suddently occurred to me that there was a perfect cartoon mascot to tape onto my computer monitor as a reminder to keep my jaw loose.
Cletus Delroy Spuckler, aka Cletus the Slackjawed Yokel, from the Simpsons.
Another coincidence? You be the judge. (But I did have to restrain myself from titling this post “Dr. Cletus S. Yokel, M.D., Ph.D.”)
And, finally, if you have an unresolved medical issue of your own and are willing to set aside your skepticism about alternative therapies, the energy worker’s name is Bill Farber, and his website can be found here. Full disclosure: I know him only very casually, through a mutual friend, and have no connection to his business, except as a gratified and mostly pain-free patron.
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