Anyone found physical therapy to be helpful?

My neuro sent me to see a physical therapist and had my first appointment yesterday.....very nice man - did a very thorough evaluation. He thinks the way I hold my head (tilted up slightly) may be compressing some nerves and contributing to the occipital neuralgia pain that I experience. I am short and if I don't tilt my head up I will be staring at people's chests instead of their faces when we talk! He also told me that the kind of occipital neuralgia pain I experience (pain behind both eyes instead of just one eye) is very rare - about 1 in 100,000. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a "normal" medical condition!

Anyway, he did some traction and gave me some exercises to do at home. He called today to see how I was doing - not sure if he was hoping for some improvement in my symptoms so quickly but did tell him that I considered my first visit a success because the traction did not make things worse and it will be probably be a few weeks before I will be able to know if we are doing any good with the traction and exercises. Trying to keep my expectations low but just curious if anyone has had any success working with a pt. L

I have chronic daily headaches and a physical therapist, who worked on the neck and shoulders and did lower the pain level for me. I then went to a neuromuscular (trigger point) massage therapist who worked on the entire body to address skeletal/muscular imbalances. She did lower the headache pain levels a bit more. And finally, I went and am still going (every so often) to a somatic practitioner, who gave some exercises which allow me to maintain the progress I have made. I still get headaches of varying pain intensity, but the overall pain level is lower. I also use baclofen, a muscle relaxant, to keep the muscles from tightening up.

I am also short and posture is also a problem for me. But, to me, it seem to be from holding my head forward too much.

Martin

I had some help. I also had a neck forward and up posture and I found after really focusing on this (and the exercises we did in pt) I can get some relief, especially if I catch myself doing it and correct for it. No idea how long I've been doing this, but I assume after my headache started...I do all sorts of weird stuff with my body because of how much pain I'm in: I have horrible forehead creases, I tense my left arm, keep my neck very stiff, and the neck posture. I believe in giving all this sort of could help but wouldn't hurt sort of treatments a try--whether it be chiro, massage, pt, etc. I wouldn't however consider them unless it was at low out of pocket cost to me (which it is). I still go to massage now and I found that to really help my neck (not deep tissue, but more of a myofascial release technique), but not my head (so far). I still take a nightly muscle relaxer. Haven't found much besides narcotics to help the head so I try to treat everything else I can which is wrong with me. Can't beat $10/massage!

I think you have a really good attitude about it. Hopefully he just wanted to check up and see that you weren't in any worse pan or anything (which can happen...but you should tell them so they can adjust). A lot of these alternative therapists will say they will "heal" you right away. Honestly, for those like us, all I'd wish for is a bit of relief. There have been some I ran straight out the door after the first visit because I thought they had no idea what they were talking about though! Best wishes.