Effective!!
Written: May 02 '06
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Actually provides relief.
Cons: HEAVY.
The Bottom Line: If you have back pain, buy this now.
|
|
|
| arthurmerlin's Full Review: Homedics Action Massager with 3 Custom Massage Hea... |
Quick take: This is one of the very few massagers of all kinds that I have tried that ACTUALLY PROVIDES RELIEF!
Some background: I was diagnosed with muscle spasm in my upper back, which hurt like HELL. I was seeing a professional physical therapist (PT) for several months -- the PT would give a serious 20-minute massage twice a week, and this was the only thing that would bring my symptoms under control. [Begin Short Diatribe] Then of course my HMO decided to discontinue my PT visits. [End Short Diatribe]
Since obviously I could not massage my own back with my hands, I had to find some relief. I tried MANY MANY massage devices, many upwards of $500, none of which helped. Finally, I randomly tried the Homedics PA-1 hand-held Massager, and I experienced relief for the first time.
CAVEAT: Of course, the relief provided by this device is nowhere near the relief from an actual human massage. Nevertheless, it did provide some relief.
The way it works is simple: The massage is "percussive", meaning that the two heads rapidly move up-and-down, gently beating on your flesh. This is nothing like a real massage, but it still helps somehow. The great thing about it is that it isn't just jiggling around (i.e. it is not a "vibrating" massage), which at least for me would just make my back itch, and provide no relief.
The device is adjustable in 3 ways:
1) It has 3 heads, soft, medium, and hard. I always use soft. The harder ones become painful. But for less sensitive individuals, presumably the other heads could be useful.
2) It has a slider that allows the user to specify the intensity of the massage, which basically is just the rate at which the heads beat on your flesh. I always use the lowest setting; I find it the most relaxing.
3) There is also a button which allows the user to specify the inter-head distance for the 2 heads. I've never found this particularly useful. I sometimes randomly try different settings, but I've never noticed any substantial difference in how it feels on my body.
I also use this on my wife, who recently gave birth, and therefore has assorted back pains. She loves it. We also bought one as a gift for her father, who also loves it.
One main negative: It feels HEAVY, especially after using it for a while. I wish I could attach helium balloons to the massager, but alas this seems impractical. Usually I do stop using it because it becomes too heavy, and not because I feel I've been massaged enough.
All-in-all, I wish I could hire a professional masseuse, but I can't. Given that, this is a great device. The weight of the device is annoying, but this seems like an unfortunate consequence of having complete control over the location and position of the massager.
Highly recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
arthurmerlin
|
|
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.