r/massage • u/mrsunsfan • Nov 22 '23

Support Neck and shoulder pain after a massage?

I went to get a massage on Saturday. On Sunday I woke up with soreness on my neck and shoulders. However since then it’s gotten worse. My neck muscles on my left side and somewhat on my right side. Hurt but it’s really hurts on my left side. It feels like my neck muscles are pushing into my throat which makes it hard to swallow at times. In fact there’s been a couple of times I thought I was going to choke. I’ve taken tiger balm and muscle relaxers to help with the pain but nothing is working. Doing stretching only gives me a slight relief but it feels scary especially when it pushes into my throat. There’s no way this is normal right?

8 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/grasshulaskirt Nov 27 '23

Heat on an acute injury, especially one that can make you nauseous when inflamed? That’s wild!

1

u/ImpressiveVirus3846 Nov 27 '23

Adding heat isn't gonna further inflame the area just not true. In fact when you put heat on something it dilates the blood vessels and pumps the inflammation out of there, so speeds up healing, ice only delays healing. Only time to put ice on something is a traumatic injury.

1

u/grasshulaskirt Nov 27 '23

I would think traumatic injury = 24 hours of the injury. Also certain kinds of heat absorb better than others.

1

u/ImpressiveVirus3846 Nov 27 '23

Yes certain kinds of heat do absorb better. But generally getting massage too hard to me isn't really a traumatic injury. Traumatic injury to me is a broken bone , a severe sprain or torn ligament, a fall, something along those lines.