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Paule Attar Salon Takes on 'Blackberry Thumb,' Other Woes
Bellevue Reporter

April 21, 2007

As thousands of Eastside employees already know, sitting at a computer all day is hard work.

The awkward posture maintained when typing for hours can cause fatigue and inflammation of muscles, as well as compression nerves in the back and neck. Workers who use cell phones and other hand-held electronics such as Blackberrys or Palm Pilots throughout the day are also often bothered by soreness in their hands and fingers.

Enter Paule Attar Salon and Spa in downtown Bellevue.

According to Heinz Mikulka, vice president of the facility, clients often come in with these kinds of complaints. As a result, Paule Attar has recently begun offering services to provide temporary relief for a variety of tech-related aches and pains from knotted shoulders to "Blackberry Thumb."

"We have quite a few customers working for Microsoft and other tech companies and they all complain that their neck, shoulders and arms hurt. So we thought, why don't we do something more specific for these clients?" Mikulka said.

Treatements geared toward computer-related maladies include luxury high-tech massages focusing on the back, neck and shoulders, hand massages for mouse-strained fingers and warm stone presses to relax tense muscles and ease swollen joints.

Paule Attar, which has been in Belleveu for almost 20 years, also offers a full array of more traditional salon services including hair-stylings, massages, nail treatments and facials.

Jeff Sigman, a Microsoft employee who has been getting his hair cut at Paule Attar for a number of years, recently tried a luxury high-tech massage for the first time.

"When it was over, my back and arms felt so relaxed, it was like they didn't exist," Sigman said. "I didn't even think about them being there."

Sigman admits to working between eight and 10 hours a day in front of his computer. The result is a stiff back and tense muscles. The massage, he said, provided much needed (albeit temporary) relief. He plans to make luxury massages at Paule Attar a part of his regular routine.

It's something I'll probably treat myself to once a month," Sigman said. "It's pretty sensational and doing it more often might be gluttonous."