A couple of days before we were leaving for Tour of Nilgiris I heard from Sakina the Digital Marketing Manager at The Four Fountains Spa. She offered me an hour’s free package at the spa to experience it and review it on my blog. The deal sounded good to me but I still asked her if the offer holds in the case of a truthful review. She wanted nothing else so, of course I said yes, I’d do it. 🙂

I haven’t been to a lot of spas and know zilch about them. My first spa experience was at Angsana in UB City a few years back and I came away worse than I went in. Had a actual visible muscle lump in my shoulder for a week and I paid a bomb for it! That experience put me off spas and until we went to Thailand last year I hadn’t been near any spa. But after TfN the idea of a spa was really tempting and then Che agreed to come along so there I found myself talking to Sakina and booking a slot.

We went to the branch of the Four Fountains Spa in Jayanagar in the morning on a weekday. There was just one person waiting so we sat down and started to browse through the list of therapies they had. We weren’t waiting long before Dr. Devishri came to greet us and asked us to fill up some information forms. She followed that up by asking us questions about our life and lifestyle to assess our stress levels. Turns out I’m more stressed than Che 😀

Based on our stress levels and type of lifestyle Dr. Devishri recommended a Swedish Massage for Che and the Head-Neck-Shoulder Massage and Foot Reflexology for me. But after the battering of the sun and mountains on my face through TfN I felt a facial was due so, I added a Healing Facial to my list of treatments. 🙂

I was introduced to Arunli my masseuse who led me to my room. At the Four Fountains Spa the massages are gender specific, i.e. men will only have male masseuses and women will have female masseuses. Arunli asked me to change into disposable undergarments that were provided and locked my valuables away into a locker. Then the massage started.

I don’t remember much after this other than a feeling of bliss as Arunli worked my scalp, head, neck and shoulders. The right pressure and fluid movements had me in a zone of peace in no time. By the time she was ready to work my feet, I was ready to fall into a soft calming sleep. After a hot bath where I washed off all the oil (atleast most of it), she got started on my face slowing cleaning and rubbing away all the smudges made by the sun. My face felt my own after a long time.

An hour and a half later I walked out into the reception feeling all shiny and new. I could feel all my muscles now but in a nice way. I looked across at Che and we shared that smile that says, oh baby, that was good! I hadn’t had this good a spa experience ever. But it didn’t end here, we still had the bill for Che to come.

But before the bill Dr. Devishri sat us down and gave us individual prescription booklets where she marked specific diets, lifestyle changes and exercises she recommended for us to reduce stress in our lives. She also told us how often she thought we needed massage therapy. With the booklet we also got a guide to stress-free living. I must say I was amazed by the extra mile they were going for customers.

Finally we got the bill. And it wasn’t much. I ain’t saying its cheap but it not as expensive as most other spas. Che’s Swedish Massage with an upgrade of oil and steam for over an hour and a half cost us less than 2K. That’s cost effective and great value for money!

I definitely recommend the Four Fountains Spa if you are looking for some massage therapy.

Now here’s the bonus. You can also get a free massage, just read on for details to take part in the contest and a chance to win that free massage.

The guys at Four Fountains Spa have offered free spa vouchers to three winners here on my blog. The contest starts on 04/02/2013 and closes on 17/02/2013.
To participate all you have to do is answer a question for the first prize which is a Gift Voucher for a 1 hour full-body massage. There are also two half hour partial-body massages to be won through a raffle draw that you can enter through twitter and facebook. You can make additional entries everyday for the raffle i.e. you can make upto a total of 20 entries!

Remember you are NOT limited to one entry! 🙂

A little bit about The Four Fountains Spa. They are India’s largest chain of affordable day spas with 17 conveniently located spas across 8 cities of India where therapies include over 20 body massages, body polishes, body wraps and facials. They are currently located in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Goa, and Manali.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This was my first ever contest and I think it did well. Thank you everyone who took part and helped me spread the word. 🙂 Now for the winners –
1 hour of free massage therapy was won by Greeshma CV
1/2 hour of free massage therapy won by Sushesh S Mallya
1/2 hour of free massage therapy won by Meeta Panicker
Congrats Greeshma, Sushesh and Meeta. Hope you enjoy your massages as much as I did. 🙂

To everyone who participated, better luck next time. I’ll be having more contests and giveaways soon, so don’t miss them. 🙂

Sometime about the time we returned from TfN I had an allergic attack, by New Year’s it was a full blown sinus cold & cough and last week despite precautions and medications it moved to becoming a migraine. I hate migraines, I wouldn’t wish them on my enemies and sinus migraines are the worst.

My sinus migraine follows a wave, it goes away for a while and I rejoice, then suddenly when I least expect its back in full force. It’s like someone hammering a nail into my head. Only in one little spot in my head. I feel hot and in hell, my eyes feel red and I literally see red. Oh!, it’s horrible. After a while I don’t even enjoy the time when the pain is gone because I know its going to be back and I’m dreading the moment. On a scale on 1 to 10 I’d say the pain fluctuates between 7 and 10. I not yet screaming only because I have a higher pain threshold than normal.

Ah! That felt good. Thank you for listening. I’m in so much pain that I really wanted to tell someone, so I wrote it down 😀

I’ve managed the last few days to do the physical non-thinking work but all mental stuff like my blog posts are just beyond me (it took me four days to slowly complete this post). I can’t; I’m unable to think and its blaady frustrating. I’ve been quite a burden these past few days, mopping around holding my head and moaning at the weirdest of times. I refuse to let a migraine stop my life but it’s horrible and frustrating.

Since medication hadn’t worked and I needed some serious sinus relief, Che did some research on YouTube (hurray for the internet). Here’s a couple of things we watched and tried.

Dr. Veera Gupta’s massage technique works and it did help. It did drain my sinuses a bit and gave me some relief but I guess my sinuses are really clogged and this isn’t enough by itself. Maybe if I did this massage regularly or when the cold starts it’ll help a lot more and I won’t get to this situation. The other drawback to this is that its not easy to do on yourself, it’s better done by someone else on you.

I tried doing these yoga positions but with an all-out migraine bending over caused excruciating pain and I couldn’t do most of the steps Chaz Rough shows. But I guess doing this yoga routine regularly will help stay away from the migraine situation. The breathing step is great and easy to do just after a stream session though.

I also found this video with Michelle Ebbin on ModernMom talking about how to use reflexology to reduce migraines. I don’t really know how well reflexology works but at this point in time I’m happy to try almost anything.

The other thing I’ve been doing a lot is steaming. I’m doing at least two rounds of 10 min. each everyday for the last few days and that has helped too. The steam relieves the nasal block and clears the head at least for a while.

All said and done, I’m trying everything to help me deal with my allergies and migraines, especially since Bangalore isn’t the best of cities for someone with allergies. I’m off to the Doctor again tomorrow to see to the migraines; I can’t live with it anymore.

If you have any tips or advise for me, please let me know. I need all the help I can get. 🙂

Update asof 12th Jan ’13: Been to the the Doc and he says it definitely looks like a sinus induced migraine however before we do any further investigation, I need to get out of the pain I’m in and the migraines and sinus build-up has to reduce. I’m on a course of medication for now. After the course and once I’ve got some relief I need to get a CT-scan done to see that’s constantly causing the sinus to flare up and not drain. Based on the scan further action can then be planned to resolve the issue fully.