Massage Therapy

My friend recently died of breast cancer. She was an amazing woman who lived fully until the end. Everyone who knew her loved her, she made everyone feel special. I hadn't known her all that long or even that well but she had an impact on my life out of proportion to our time spent together. When her cancer recurred, I wanted to do whatever I could to help. One of the things I was able to offer was massage.

Our first massage was a general full body relaxation massage. She loved it. She had been having trouble sleeping and it left her feeling so relaxed that she felt as if she could fall asleep. I told her I would come and give her massage whenever she wanted. She stayed pretty busy in spite of the illness and so several weeks passed before I gave her massage again.

Christopher Moyer, Ph.D., is a psychologist who has done research in massage therapy and meditation. He recently began a blog on research and massage therapy and I was honored that he asked to interview me for his blog.

I first got to know Chris when I heard that he’d done a metaanalysis that overturned what a lot of us thought about massage lowering cortisol. Curious, I looked him up on the internet and sent an email asking about his paper. Shortly after, I encountered him again in online discussions and it led to a friendship that was both professional and personal as we discovered we had many common interests.

Clients never mention it, but occasionally in more personal conversations someone will bring it up: chronic pain can interfere with intimate relationships.

Most clients would not mention it to their massage therapist and it is not within our scope of practice to treat. However, since February is the month of Valentine's Day, I thought it would be an appropriate time to bring up a pain topic that may hurt your love, is rarely discussed, that many massage therapists may not know exists, and that many people may suffer with silently without seeking help or getting proper treatment.

Common chronic pain problems can hurt your love.

Chronic low back pain and chronic headaches are two common pain problems that can interfere in intimate relationships. It's hard to feel romantic when your head hurts and low back pain may make physical intimacy difficult. When chronic pain interferes with your love life, it can erode the closeness of your relationship. This is just one of many reasons why chronic pain should be treated and not just assumed to be an inevitable part of life. The deterioration of the quality of one's life can be far-reaching.

During this time of year, I start seeing a lot of billboards along the highway from the massage franchises competing with each other for massage gift certificate sales. The thought occurs to me that, while they may be able to compete with each other over price, they cannot compete with us when it comes to quality. I began to think of all that we're able to offer our clients that the massage franchises cannot.

Over twenty years of experience and expertise

Most of the franchises are staffed by therapists recently graduated from massage school. There's nothing wrong with that; everyone has to start somewhere. However, after twenty-three years of practice and an uncommon level of training achieved by few therapists, we can offer a quality of experience that an unseasoned therapist cannot. Whether you are coming for relaxation or pain relief, prenatal or sports massage, we bring a depth of experience to the table that few can touch. And even after all these years, we have not gotten bored yet! In fact, we spend hours every week reading research and academic papers, discussing pain rehabilitation and related topics with a variety of other informed professionals. 

I love massage. I’m passionate about it. I think it has many benefits and a lot of unrealized potential. I think it’s so awesome that I see no need to exaggerate or make unsupported claims. I am also committed to client-centered practice and part of that commitment is providing honest, accurate information.

The world of weight loss is, unfortunately, full of misleading, exaggerated, and completely bogus claims. There’s a large population that struggles with weight and it’s an easy population to exploit for profit. As a result, fraud is rampant in the weight-loss industry. Unfortunately, predatory misinformation offering false promises of easy weight loss has spilled over to include massage.

I hate to disappoint anyone but there is no evidence to support the claim that massage will cause you to lose weight.

Our commitment to excellence and to a client-centered practice means that we make every effort to make sure the information we give clients is accurate and reliable. We spend hours every week reading research and discussing it with other well-informed professionals. We read extensively to understand how pain works, how the body works, and what we, as manual therapists, can do to help our clients. When we discover that an idea we held to be true turns out to be wrong, we change our thinking to conform to the best available evidence. We work at keeping it real so that we can best serve the needs of our clients.

Our FaceBook friend Nick Ng recently quoted us at length in an article he wrote about Massage Myths That Need To Be Trashed. We really like his article and we're flattered he liked what we had to say about the need to support our claims with evidence and to welcome honest inquiry. 

I was recently contacted by Fiza Mahmood and Toni Kodner of the St. Louis Gateway Area Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and asked to speak on a conference call about massage therapy and multiple sclerosis. Although my familiarity with the condition and experience with clients with MS is limited, they thought my expertise with a variety of conditions and efforts to stay informed would be relevant enough, so I agreed and became very excited about this unique opportunity.

Most of us were brought up, professionally, with an idea of "deep tissue" and the need to "break up adhesions," "stretch fascia," and generally "fix" the meat and bones. Along the way, some of us discovered pain science, neuromatrix theory, and the realization that it is the nervous system that creates tension, creates the sensation of pain, and it is through the nervous system that one corrects it. We came to understand that manual therapy works not by mechanically altering muscle, facia, posture, etc., but by influencing the nervous system.

Modern pain science has found that the more the nervous system is subjected to nociception, the more sensitive it becomes. Therefore, we avoid creating pain.

When people say, “I have TMJ,” they usually mean that they have temporomandibular joint dysfunction, a condition that can cause jaw pain that can be difficult to treat. Chewing may be painful and it can lead to headaches and neck, shoulder, and upper back pain. They may experience popping, clicking, and shifting when they open and close their jaw and their mouth may even get stuck in an open position if they yawn or open their mouth too far.

Anxiety and depression are common yet serious disorders.  Massage therapy may help.