At my clinic, we had a vibrating desk that will assist calm down the tissue in sufferers’ necks and decrease backs. I made a decision to offer {that a} attempt. Certain sufficient, it made the ache tolerable, however the results didn’t final lengthy.

My brother can also be a chiropractor, and he’d been in a water snowboarding accident about two years earlier than my incident. He really helpful attempting a Vibracussor (a comfortable 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 measurement of a coke can, that will vibrate. I positioned it beneath my proper arm, however similar to the desk, it might 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 more durable to my physique, after which the reduction lasted for just a few extra minutes. However then it might come again with vengeance.

I noticed the explanation 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 so on).

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 reduction. I ended up constructing a prototype primarily based 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, shifting it up and down my arm, because it moved up and down quickly. I experimented with it an increasing number of — when the ache would begin creeping again, I’d use the system on my physique once more.

I realized that ache travels to the mind to your ache facilities at about 55 miles an hour. However while you put one thing in your pores and skin—ice, warmth, chilly, vibration—that info 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 sooner.

I realized that that stimulus did not must be on my neck, the place my ache originated. It could possibly 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.