Massage is probably the oldest form of therapy on the planet. Thin about it. As a child if you fell and banged your knee what is the first thing you did? Rub it! If your arm aches what is the first thing you do? Rub it! Physiologically what does massage do? It warms muscle and skin by increasing circulation.......period. Patients often ask ifmassage will be effective for their back pain or leg pain. It can be in some instances. In these instances I prefer to show a patient how to perform self-massage using either a massage stick/roller or a foam roller. Both of these simple tools allow the patient to direct massage therapy to the injued area and control the depth of pressure as well as the frequency and duration of the massage. More importantly it allows them to perfrom daily massage therapy at their conveinance. I have nothing against massage therapy but it is simply not practical to have enough massage that will benefit your condition unless you do it yourself. It is similiar to stretching. If you went to someone once a week to stretch your muscles it may feel good at the time but you would need to stretch daily and often to have any long term benefit. At our clinic we teach patients a home stretching program in ddition to a home self-massage program using a massage stick or foam roller. By doing daily home massage patients get better much quicker and save themselves time and money by not visiting our office, a PT office or massage therapist.
"Massage therapists are not doctors. Their education is limited to roughly 20 hours of anatomy, 20 hours of physiology and no pathology. They are not trained in diagnosis nor the study of injury or disease. They are trained to massage tight muscles. Sometimes muscles are tight for a reason. It is called muscle splinting or guarding. For instance, if you have a herniated disc in your back your back muscles will be tight. The tight muscles are not causing your herniated disc or your back pain. Rather they are trying to prevent you from using your back and making the herniated disc worse."
"When I first came to you office I was limping. I had seen chiropractors, MD's and massage therapists. They all told me I was tight and needed to stretch. You diagnosed me with Piriformis Syndrome and showed me how to use the foam roller 5 minutes a day. I developed a "love-hate" relationship with it but it worked. By butt pain started to go away, it stopped hurting like you promised and now I do the roller 3 minutes daily, right before I exercise as a warm up. I wish I had come to you sooner."
