Tag Archives: sound healing for migraines

This post is written for the Infratonic 9,
but the same instructions will work for earlier Infratonics.

The Infratonic 9 (I-9), a sound wave device — (501(k) listed by the FDA as medical massage device) — by Sound Vitality, has effectively helped me reduce the pain and duration of my migraine attacks. This article is an excerpt from a longer article about when I first used the I-9 on a Hemiplegic Migraine. Many medical massage therapists have Infratonic sound devices, including the I-9, and for the price of the therapy visit, you can experience the Infratonic device yourself. If the therapists have earlier models, like the Infratonic 8000, etc, they look different, aren’t portable, and are quite a bit larger, but they work on the same principles.

If you want to know more about my experience with the I-9, and some of its features, you can read about that here. If the I-9 can reduce and even eliminate my migraine pain, then it’s much more valuable to me than all the pain medications in the world.  If it worked for me, it can also work for you. If you want to purchase an I-9 for your very own, you’ll happy to learn that you do not have to have a medical massage license to purchase a Sound Vitality’s Infratonic 9, and you do not need your physician’s recommendation or a prescription to buy one.

I’ve included very simplified drawings of the areas where I put the I-9 to treat my migraine. I’m an author, not an artist, but I’ve indicated the rough location of the areas I treated for migraine pain. If you want more detailed images of any of the nerves or muscles, you can find them in Wikipedia articles, on medical anatomy sites, or in acupressure images. Though I looked at detailed drawings to get an idea of where the branches of the trigeminal nerve were, I used my own pain and my own pre-existing knowledge of head/neck muscles as the greatest guide to Infratonic placement during my migraine.

I started with the I-9 on the first setting, Balance, but that didn’t seem to change the pain, either for better or worse, so I proceeded to the middle setting: Acute, where  I did most of my treatment. At the end of the day, I did at least 20 minutes on the Deep Calm, which did increase the pain somewhat, but only for a few minutes. I used the Deep Calm setting because it made me fall asleep.

Head

Crown of the Head (area A)
Imagine a line going from the top of one ear over your head to the top of the other ear, and imagine that line being intersected by a line coming from between your eyes, up your forehead to the top of your head. Where those two lines intersect is the crown of your head. That’s where I put the I-9. If that particular spot on the crown didn’t feel sensitive, I moved it very slightly around that crown area. Each time I found a spot that was more sensitive on the top of my head, I kept the I-9 there until that spot on my head lost its sensitivity.

Base of the Skull (area B)
Since the debilitating pain of a migraine comes from the inflammation of the trigeminal nerve’s upper branch, I wanted to put the I-9 on an area of my head as close to the base of the trigeminal nerve as well. It enters the brain from the spinal cord at the base of the skull and then divides into two branches, with one branch going to each side of the head. I put the I-9 on the base of the skull, in the center, for about an hour (I placed the I-9 on my pillow, fan-like vents facing up, and then lay down directly on it). Then I put the I-9 slightly to the left of center, and then slightly to the right of the center of the base of the skull, to get both branches of the trigeminal nerve, for 30-50 minutes each side. On both sides of the base of the skull, the muscles were extremely tight. Using the I-9 on each side for 30-50 minutes did not increase or decrease the pain of the migraine, but it made my neck less stiff and that made my neck and right shoulder hurt less.

Trigeminal Nerve

Even though I have migraine pain only on the right side of my head, I treated both sides of my head when I was treating the trigeminal nerve. 90% of the treatment time was on the right side, where I have the pain,  and the remaining 10% was on the left side.

Trigeminal Nerve Root
On each side of your head, slightly in front your ear near the top of your upper jaw-hinge, is the trigeminal nerve root, where each branch of the trigeminal nerve divides again, this time into three distinct branches. I put the I-9 on the trigeminal nerve root area on both sides of my head, not just on the side where the migraine pain was. Putting the I-9 on the trigeminal nerve root on either side of my head caused the migraine pain on the right side to increase somewhat before it slowly decreased. Using the I-9 on the right trigeminal nerve root hurt a bit more than using it on the left, but using the I-9 on both sides of the trigeminal nerve root on caused the pain in my right temple, forehead, and top of head to increase. I treated both the trigeminal nerve root areas for at least an hour, until the migraine pain began to decrease.

Trigeminal Nerve Opthamalic Division

Trigeminal Nerve Opthamalic Division
The trigeminal nerve branches from the root into three areas on each side of the head and face. The upper branch is called the Opthamalic Division, and it spreads out across the temples, down to the eye and nose, over the eyebrows, up across the forehead, and over the top of the head. It is this branch of the nerve that is responsible for my most severe migraine pain, so I treated this division of the nerve along its entire route. Wherever I felt pain, I put the I-9, and I left it in each painful area until the pain began to decrease. Though the pain never completely disappeared, I moved on to more painful areas each time the pain lessened. I repeated treatment of this section of the trigeminal nerve whenever the pain returned (sometimes, after I was treating a different part of my head or body for the migraine pain, the pain in this section of the nerve would suddenly increase).

Trigeminal Nerve Maxillary Division

Trigeminal Nerve Maxillary Division
The middle branch of the trigeminal nerve after it leaves the trigeminal root goes across your cheek, up to your eye, down to each of your upper teeth on that particular side, and to your top lip. While I don’t necessarily feel pain along that division of the trigeminal nerve during a migraine, I do feel intense pressure in that area, so I ran the I-9 over that entire area for at least an hour on the right side, and at least 30 minutes on the left side. (Note: though I do feel eye pain during a migraine, I didn’t feel safe putting the I-9 over my eyeball itself; instead, I put the I-9 on the bony area above and below my right eye for 10-20 minutes.)

Trigeminal Nerve Mandibular Division

Trigeminal Nerve Mandibular Division
The lower branch of the trigeminal nerve after it leaves the root goes down to your jaw and to each of the lower teeth in that side of your mouth. I’ve never had migraine pain in my lower jaw or teeth, and I don’t feel any pressure there. Still, the trigeminal nerve has three major branches from the main trunk of the nerve, so I didn’t think it would hurt to put the I-9 on the mandibular branch area, where I ran it for about 10 minutes on each side. It didn’t change my migraine pain, but it made my jaw muscles feel more relaxed.

Neck

Sternocleidomastoid Muscle

Sternocleidomastoid Muscle
I was in a car accident in my early 20s and suffered a concussion and severe whiplash during which the sternocleidomastoid muscles (both sides) were damaged. Sometimes inflammation of that muscle can cause headaches, although I’m not aware that it triggers any of my migraine attacks.

You have to turn your head toward the opposite shoulder to make the sternal division of the muscle more pronounced: the clavicular division is partially behind the sternal division as it goes up your neck and attaches to your skull behind the ear. I did 10 minutes on each section of the right muscle, sternal and clavicular divisions, slowly moving the I-9 up and down the entire length from the collarbone to my skull behind the ear, and then I repeated this for 20 minutes on the muscles on the opposite side, even though I have never had a migraine on the left side of my head. It was very relaxing to use the I-9 on this muscle though it did not change the intensity of the migraine pain.

Trapezius Muscle

Trapezius Muscle
I did both sides of the trapezius muscle, from the base of the head and top of the spine, down the neck, over to the shoulder. Though research indicates that neck pain is not a cause of migraine but, instead, a symptom of a migraine attack, these muscles always feel very tight during a migraine and make the lower back of my head hurt. Using the I-9 on the upper trapezius for 20 minutes on each side made that muscle feel noticeably more relaxed, which, in turn, reduced the pain and pressure near the base of my skull.

I felt no change in muscle tension or migraine pain when I treated the lower trapezius muscles, but I treated the lower muscles whenever I treated the upper muscles because they’re all connected. To treat the lower trapezius muscles, I put the I-9 on the bed, fan-like vents facing up, and lay down directly on the I-9. Whenever the pain in the base of my head returned during the migraine, or when those neck muscles felt tight, I re-treated that entire trapezius area with the I-9, making sure to cover both sides of my body even though the migraine pain is only on one side.

Posterior Cervical Muscles

Posterior Cervical Muscles 
Research indicates that the painful neck muscles during a migraine are a symptom of the migraine attack rather than a trigger. In any event, my entire neck gets painfully stiff and uncomfortable during a migraine, so I put the I-9 under my head, at the base of my skull, so that the I-9 rested flat against the spine and those muscles, for about 20 minutes. I put the I-9 on the bed, fan-like vents facing up, and lay down directly on it. Then I moved to I-9 slightly to the left and right sides of the spine in the same general area to get all those posterior neck muscles. I ran it for 20 minutes in each area before moving it a bit lower and repeating the entire process: center over the spine, left side of spine, right side of spine, 20 minutes each. I continued that until I’d gone all the way down to the center of my back between the shoulder blades, where I felt no pain and, more important, no muscle tension.

I was careful to do both sides even though the right felt slightly tighter than the left. Though treating these muscles did not change the pain in my head, neither increasing nor decreasing it, the muscles were more relaxed afterward, and the mild pain in the base of my skull disappeared.

Additional Treatment Areas

Heart Center
*The only warning in the Infratonic 9 literature is to NOT put the I-9 anywhere near implanted pacemakers.*

At the suggestion of my medical massage therapist, I put the I-9 over my heart area (the center of my chest, actually) for at least 10 minutes. Putting it over the heart area for 10-15 minutes did not change the pain, but it made me feel calmer.

Under My Pillow At Night 
When I first used the I-9 and it made me sleepy, I turned it off and put it away. After I talked to the Director at Sound Vitality, she encouraged me to use the I-9 during sleep, all night long, leaving it under my pillow with the fan-like openings facing up toward my head. Sleeping with the I-9 made a dramatic and appreciable difference in the pain. By the next morning, the hemiplegic migraine had broken completely. (And I didn’t have to worry about the I-9 falling off the pillow and getting damaged.)

*Caution: Don’t use the I-9 under your pillow while it’s plugged in (charging). I did that early in the morning, about half an hour before I had to get up, and the device was noticeably and unconfortably warm when I removed it from under the pillow to unplug it.*

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Disclosure *

I have not received any sort of compensation whatsoever for writing this article about my experience treating migraine with the Infratonic 9. I did all the research on sound healing, ultrasound, infrasound, and Chi-sound machines myself, before and after my Infratonic 9 was purchased. I learned all the suggested placements for pain relief and treatment from my own research and my own experience with the Infratonic 8000 and the Infratonic 9.

The Infratonic 9 is made by Sound Vitality, and you can buy it directly from their site. After you have the item in your cart, you can choose Pay with PayPal if you wish to pay in installments. You will then be taken to PayPal’s site, where PayPal handles all the financial information and installment arrangements. Otherwise, you pay with a credit or debit card.

The Infratonic 9 it is also sold by Sound Vitality through Amazon, which lists the same device three different times (all with the same price): for sports injuries, abdominal pain, and menstrual cramps. If you buy the Infratonic 9 from Amazon, Sound Vitality will be sending you your device.

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For more of my migraine and chronic pain articles,
go to my Migraine / Chronic Pain page

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Suggested migraine treatment areas for Infratonic 9 © 2018 by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman. You may print this post out for your own private, non-commercial use, but instructions must include copyright. Please do not distribute without attribution and copyright notice.  Please don’t support piracy of intellectual property.

* My I-9 was purchased directly from Sound Vitality. I received no compensation for this article.
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