At my clinic, we had a vibrating desk that will assist loosen up the tissue in sufferers’ necks and decrease backs. I made a decision to provide {that a} attempt. Certain sufficient, it made the ache tolerable, however the results didn’t final lengthy.
My brother can be a chiropractor, and he’d been in a water snowboarding accident about two years earlier than my incident. He really helpful making an attempt a Vibracussor (a gentle tissue and fascia percussion instrument), and we occurred to have one buried in storage on the workplace.
This instrument had a cylinder, in regards to the dimension of a coke can, that will vibrate. I positioned it beneath my proper arm, however similar to the desk, it could solely relieve the ache for a minute or two. I began utilizing it virtually all day lengthy, as a result of it was the one factor that took the ache away. Then I made a decision to attempt to press it tougher to my physique, after which the aid lasted for just a few extra minutes. However then it could come again with vengeance.
I noticed the rationale it helped relieve the ache was due to one thing referred to as lodging — the place your physique accommodates to a stimulus (whether or not it’s the temperature, noise, and many others).
Then I puzzled what if there was one thing that didn’t contact my physique the entire time, however had a extremely excessive frequency — perhaps that will supply extra sustainable aid. I ended up constructing a prototype based mostly on what I noticed in my thoughts, by wrapping a towel round a jigsaw with electrical tape.
I began placing my bizarre contraption on my physique, transferring it up and down my arm, because it moved up and down quickly. I experimented with it increasingly more — when the ache would begin creeping again, I’d use the machine on my physique once more.
I discovered that ache travels to the mind to your ache facilities at about 55 miles an hour. However whenever you put one thing in your pores and skin—ice, warmth, chilly, vibration—that data travels to the mind 265 miles an hour. So what I used to be doing was overriding that stimulus—the ache sign didn’t attain my mind as a result of the feeling of the instrument was getting there quicker.
I discovered that that stimulus did not must be on my neck, the place my ache originated. It may very well be anyplace on my physique — my proper quad, my left arm, my shoulder — anyplace I put this factor it took the ache away, it was so powerfully relieving.
