On Mar 28, 10:50 pm, Stealth Pilot
wrote:

I think what you are doing is stimulating an adjacent nerve pathway.
up in the top of your spine in the back of your head is a nerve
integrating structure which seems to multitask the pathways.
if you stimulate an adjacent nerve the system stops processing the
original pathway and swaps to the new sensation. ...for a while.

Maybe. One doctor told me that such things work by irritating the
nerves in the skin. This draws more blood flow to the entire region,
including the muscle mass and joints underlying the skin that's
irritated, and the extra blood washes away the excess lactic acid
formed when muscles are in spasm too long. And they're in spasm
because nerves in and around them are being pinched or annoyed by
inflammation. The lactic acid burns the nerve endings. The
inflammation in muscles and joints could be due to the lactic acid,
too.
So almost any irritant will work. Isopropyl aclohol, various
liniments, pepper juice. Others are forms of topical anaesthetics like
menthol or eucalyptus or camphor. Those deaden nerve endings. Vinegar
is also a mild anaesthetic and works on mosquito bites and mild
sunburn and other itches.

My Mom gave me some pepper juice roll-on stuff in the more
expensive form of Lakota. It works. And stings the most when I'm in
the shower long after it was applied.

Dan