Does anyone have any remedies for tension headaches that don’t involve painkillers or sex? Thanks!
Wait, back up the truck a bit. Sex relieves tension headaches? Score!
Hot shower with the water running directly onto your neck.
Slightly less effective, but handy at work, stick your hands in very warm water and massage the sides of your fingers.
I KNEW that was gonna happen :smack:
Ok, one time I was told by a guy that sex helped tension headaches. I was (am) too oblivious to realize that he was hitting on me. But sex is not really an option. I have tried squeezing my earlobes and place between thumb and finger and nothing is working. I hate headache pain.
Sex builds up the nervous tension in your body. When you orgasm you release this nervous tension all in one rush which tends to reduce the pain associated with the tension headache.
The major problem I have with this technique is to be able to stop your head exploding while you’re building up all that nervous tension.
Actually the shower has helped some. It did feel good I also currently smell like coconuts because of my body wash and that is always nice 
I didn’t understand the sex helps headaches either because of the exact reason you mentioned about the exploding head.
Hrm… I think I should have been clearer. I get tension headaches (as well as migraines… does it work for those too?). I also (some of the time) am near enough a young woman I’m seeing that I could call her up and have a lot more fun than taking fistfuls of Excedrin.
Oh, unless you were joking 
Great, I just gave you a new pickup line. 
No I am not joking but check caught@work’s messages too especially about the exploding head.
I once read that caffeine alone can cure some headaches. I prefer to pair mine with Tylenol alternating with Advil for tension headaches, and it usually works. Mine can last for days, so I have to keep medicating, but if I don’t medicate, I can end up bedridden.
Well, we’re not regulated by the FFC here, so I have an idea: oral sex. Actually, I’d have said “blowjob”, but this might work for the geese as well, so…
Anyhow, one would just lie back and let the bed take care of skeletal support and one’s partner take care of motion and friction.
Or have you already tried this?
Is it a “pickup” if you’re already dating her? I think the word you’re looking for is “excuse”.
Still not an option for me at this time.
Mathochist: I was trying to avoid the word excuse. 
Is that how you have sex? Are you a Ferenghi?
Seriously, I always have a tension headache, though it varies in intensity. One thing that helps is massage. I have an electric Shiatsu massager that helps with the back of my neck and shoulders. If you have a partner or friend who gives great massages, you’re very lucky (My Guy tries, but he doesn’t have the right touch). Foot massages also help.
What is a ferenghi? I have no clue
No guy to help with massaging my shoulders 
I am starting to feel a little better. It still hurts enough to keep me awake though.
A lot of time, when a person’s head hurts, the tension starts between the shoulderblades. This is because one of the really big muscles between the shoulderblades runs up into your neck and ends up attaching to the back of your head, where it tugs on your scalp. (It’s the trapezius.)
I don’t know how to describe this maneuver which I use and have taught my friends to shortcircuit some of our headaches. Cut me some slack. You stand in a doorway with the door open. You turn your back at a diagonal angle to the edge of the doorway. You push your back up against the edge of the doorway and adjust your position until the edge falls into that long vertical dip between your shoulderblade and your spine. You lift up on the balls of your feet to press the doorway edge into the muscle in that dip. Rock or tilt back and forth. It helps.
Of course, it helps more to have a person who knows massage, come and put her fingers into the origin and insertions of the trapezius.
The other thing that helps me a lot - not to get into the sex half of the thread - is vibrating massage. I have a LARGE FLAT MASSAGE PAD, boys, not a phallic vibrator, that generates vibration and heat. Bought it off the Net for thirty bucks. Helps all sorts of sore places. Which, since I do aikido, I always have plenty of.
Last point: Is there any sinus component to your headaches? You will know if you feel an uncomfortable pressure-building-up feeling in your cheekbones or your forehead. A person in sinus-fraught Memphis taught me that the only hope to get rid of a sinus headache is to take the analgesics and the sinus medicine at the same time. If you’ve tried heat, caffeine, and ibuprofen and nothing’s working, I’d throw a Claritin into the mix. Not too expensive and won’t make you sleepy, and little to nothing in the way of side effects if I’m wrong.
Good luck feeling better!
I do not have a headache, but I am willing to explore the possibility that this will aid in prevention. Will report back the results. When I can find time.
There was a huge sinus component (which probably added to the stress) but my tension headaches differ from my sinus ones. I got about 4 hours of sleep and am going to head back to bed shortly but I am feeling better today. I am thinking it might be how I am sleeping. I am going to take it very easy today.
A decade ago, I was at a week-long house party. One of the other guests was a massage therapist. He worked on us all at one point, and what he did was pull our arms and legs and heads until tight muscles were forced to relax. When the muscles relaxed, they twitched.
I sometimes find that if I lie on my stomach, with my head on the floor, I can move my head into just the right position and the trapezius twitches and relaxes. It cures the headache completely, for a few hours at least.
No headache yet! Oooops, gotta go.
Interesting about the sinus component - my migraines have that, and I thought for a long time they were sinus headaches. But it’s the other way around for me. One of the signals I get that I have a migraine coming on is pressure, heaviness and stuffiness on one side. snort, snort- time for an Imitrex.
As for tension headaches - sometimes ice works when heat doesn’t. I’m a big fan of ice. And for the traps, I take two racquetballs taped together with sports tape and lay on them. Rolling them up and down along the spine feels goooood, and you can work into the base of the traps.